Honestly, I’ve never understood the pains some people go to in order to write. The planning. The organizing. The ritual. I’m sure it’s important, and billions of best sellers prove that it’s working for someone, but it just doesn’t work for me.

There’s no routine, for me. This is how I write.

This Is How I Write

I start with an idea. The idea never comes when I want it to. It comes at a random time, and that’s why a routine doesn’t work.

Usually, I jot the idea down. I email it to myself. Then, I put it on my to-do list. If I don’t put it on my to-do list, the idea might as well have never happened.

Next: when I have time, I write.

That’s all.

I know, right? Because writing is this prickly, amorphous tangle of emotion and fear and all of that.

Truth is, I just write. I just start something. If I finish, I finish. If I don’t, I wait until the next day. The issue isn’t the process – it’s about getting over the blank page, starting to write a few words, and ending up on a roll.

The tools

Today is my first day using a traditional text editor to write a blog post. I’m using BBEdit, and I’ve imported my blog’s stylesheet so I can see how it looks in realtime. My goal is to take it one step further, implementing Gruber’s Markdown syntax to create a simple and effective process toward writing my posts in HTML, making transfer to this blog more logical.

Before this, I was an unabashed Microsoft Word fan. What changed? A need for simplicity, first off, and a need for something that I could transfer from site to site. The copy/paste/format/code routine seemed so archaic, as if I was still trying to start a fire with sparks and leaves while a butane lighter sat just inches away.

I jot ideas into Evernote, but typically I use email to remind myself. My to-do list is Things, which I love, and I sketch more complex ideas into a Moleskin.

I used to use ultra-fine Sharpie pens, but they bleed through my current knock-off Moleskin. So I’ve switched to Energel Liquid Gel Ink pens from Pentel. They’re great.

Why does this matter?

It doesn’t.

Seriously. This does not matter.

This routine is mine. It’s not even a routine. It’s barely a list of actionable steps – it’s more like a random list of unactionable drivel.

I write the way I write and you write the way you write. Creativity. Analysis. Creation of any kind. These are not things that can be summed up in a 15,000-hit eHow page, or on a search marketing blog, or even person to person.

I mentioned this in my methodology post over at Eating Elephant: you create your own system by trying and failing and adapting and trying again. Because what I do will not work for you. What you do will not work for me. All we can do with each other is make suggestions, push each other harder, and remember that nothing creative is done in terms of black and white.

By all means, try my method. Try lots of methods. And take the things that work forward to create your own method.

So y’all should go listen to it. We talk about basketball and The Monkees and old Pomp Room shows and we maybe even kind of get into emo music a little bit.

The playlist for The Ledge, Episode 78: Corey Vilhauer’s Defense of Emo:

1. Sunny Day Real Estate – “47” (Diary, Sub Pop 1994)
2. Engine Kid – “Windshield” (Angel Wings, Revelation 1994)
3. Elliott – “Calm Americans” (False Cathedrals, Revelation 2000)
4. Mineral – “Gloria” (The Power of Failing, Epitaph 1997)
5. Split Lip – “Street Singer” (Fate’s Got a Driver, Doghouse 1995)
6. Rainer Maria – “Broken Radio” (Look Now Look Again, Polyvinyl 1999)
7. Jejune – “Morale is Low” (This Afternoon’s Malady, Big Wheel Recreation 1998)
8. Braid – “First Day Back” (Frame and Canvas, Polyvinyl 1998)
9. The Promise Ring – “Is This Thing On?” (Nothing Feels Good, Jade Tree Records 1997)
10. The Blacktop Cadence – “Cold Night in Virginia” (The Emo Diaries, Chapter 2, Deep Elm 1998)
11. Samiam – “Ordinary Life” (The Emo Diaries, Chapter 1, Deep Elm 1997)
12. Piebald – “Grace Kelly with Wings” (If it Weren’t for Venetian Blinds it Would Be Curtains For Us All, Big Wheel Recreation 1999)
13. The Anniversary – “The D in Detroit” (Designing a Nervous Breakdown, Vagrant 2000)
14. Reggie and the Full Effect – “Girl, Why’d You Run Away?” (Greatest Hits 1984-1987, Vagrant 1999)
15. Jets to Brazil – “The Frequency” (Perfecting Loneliness, Jade Tree 2002)
16. Jimmy Eat World – “Thinking, That’s All” (Static Prevails, Capitol 1996)
17. The Get Up Kids – “Alec Eiffel” (Where Is My Mind? A Tribute to the Pixies, Glue Factory Records 1999)
18. Seven Storey Mountain – “So Soon” (Based on a True Story, Jade Tree 2000)
19. Texas is the Reason – “The Magic Bullet Theory” (Do You Know Who You Are?, Revelation 1995)

Well, I started a content strategy blog. And I’m pretty excited about it.

What are you waiting for? Go visit Eating Elephant. And learn about content strategy, you nerd.

So you make it up. And that’s okay, because this is blogging, people. This is ego massaging. This is free-form writing, and there aren’t many rules, and if you think there are then you’re probably doing it wrong.

But sometimes, we get stuck looking for rules.

Which is why this is the first blog post on Black Marks on Wood Pulp in two weeks. (Official meta note: that’s the longest stretch without content the site has seen since not being a site at all.)

Why? Dunno. It’s 100% mental.

Because I read a lot of blog posts from a lot of people who are very good at writing blog posts, and a constant stream of great blog posts gives the illusion that every post is perfect and that I need to pick up my game.

Instead of getting hits when I can, I’ve been aiming for home runs. I’ve been waiting for the perfect pitch. I’ve been striking out looking.

I’ve tricked myself into thinking that there’s this one blog out there that posts something brilliant every day. Nope. Not true.

Instead, there’s thousands of blogs out there that, as a collective, through sheer numbers, post one or two great things each day. And fail. Hundreds of times each day.

Fail? Nah. That’s not right at all. They simply don’t resonate as far as those great ones. But they’re still there, and they’ve still done something, and that consistency of hits goes a long way toward making the home runs worth something.

In other words: sorry I’ve been gone. Crisis averted, I guess.

You can get away with speaking English, sure. Out of necessity, the French service industry will accommodate you. But Marcel the Waiter and Jules the Store Clerk will make no effort to hide their disgust.

If you make an effort, though, things are different. You will be treated okay. You may get a smirk. But you’ll also gain a bit of respect.

They will understand: you are trying. You are not asking for a handout. On the contrary: by refusing to burden your hosts, you provide an opportunity for improvement instead of a stubborn refusal to adapt.

Bring It Home, Son

Three years ago, I wanted to redesign my blog. Without a real lick of design talent, I hinted and hoped someone would help me. And by “help,” I meant “take on this sorry project as a favor.”

It didn’t work.

It didn’t work because I hadn’t made any effort on my end. Like some American on vacation in Paris, I had barged my way in and asked for things my way.

Recognizing this, I went to work on my own.

Three years later, after hacking together a design and scrapping a design and hacking together three more designs and scrapping three more designs and, finally, developing something I felt matched the personality and future of this blog, I had a finished product.

It wasn’t a very good finished product. But it had promise.

Only THEN did I begin asking for help.

The Moral of the Story

The process has been a valuable lesson in knowing my own limits and understanding when I can approach others.

I was lucky to receive advice from three very talented designers. Advice turned into updated mocks, unsolicited elements and some very fun ideas. The final site design is not only influenced by these changes and suggestions, but also serves as collaboration between my initial design and the minds of a greater design community.

Major thanks go out to Karla, Mike and Stefan. Even major-er thanks go to Kerrie, whose patience during this process was pretty impressive. I not only appreciate the help, but I understand the process better than ever.

In the end, all it took was a devotion to learning a little French. With help from some great people, I was able to carry on a conversation.

Want to know what makes this “live for food” thing pretty fun? My wife. She likes to cook. A lot.

So we cook. A lot. And we try new things. And we grow gardens. And we buy cookbooks with beautiful pictures. And we introduce our kids to foods that they normally wouldn’t encounter and, let’s be honest, they still don’t eat them but at least they know what lentils and cardamom pods and homemade turkey pot pie are.

In the past month, we’ve roasted our own coffee, baked our own hamburger buns, planned a spring garden and developed a fast and easy kettle corn process.

(I say “we,” as if I’ve had any real input other than saying, “OMG THAT SMELLS GOOD LULZ!”)

So we like cooking, baking and gardening.

Now that THAT’S been established, I’d like to finally announce Kerrie’s new blog: Serves Four, a blog about cooking, baking and gardening. It’s named “Serves Four” because our four person family gets to reap the rewards of all that cooking, baking and gardening. It’s a blog because there JUST AREN’T ENOUGH cooking, baking and gardening blogs out there.

Check it out. We’d appreciate it.

You – like millions of others – are stopping by because you heard about my South Dakota Socies win in the Argus Leader. We’re glad to have you. Take a look around, check out the archives, have some soup, and MORE!

What are the Socies? I’m fantastically glad you asked, new friend.

The Socies are an award given to the most practiced of social media users, presented by the handsome men at Click Rain, with help from our local paper. And while I usually bristle at awards (I know for certain that Black Marks on Wood Pulp is hardly the best blog in the state and it’s difficult to make judgment based on a small sample size of personal taste) I showed up to claim my award with pride. Because I’m not ALWAYS a curmudgeon, regardless of what my coworkers, friends, wife, kids, mother, personal trainer, mother-in-law, etc. say.

I got a medal. And a t-shirt. And some beer things! A lot of beer things. (The message is loud and clear, guys. I’VE STOPPED DRINKING BEER FOR BREAKFAST. But not for lunch.)

So check it all out!

Oh. By the way. If you’re coming from the Argus, disregard the series of five blog posts where I call the Argus a lame excuse for a newspaper. That was a bad couple of days. I must have been pretty crabby.

Oh, and there’s that one where I got cranky about their article pagination. Or the one where I got upset about a word they made up. Also, disregard the time when I called the lead Web guy on the carpet (Cory Myers, a very cool person who I have since met and actually like) for mangling my tweet.

Huh. Are you guys sure the Argus had a hand in these awards? I can’t imagine they’d hand it over to a punk like … hey … wait. Don’t leave.

And, for real, this might come as a surprise considering my habit of documenting every personal thought I’ve had for the past five years, but, hey, give me this. This is my thing. It’s not that I hate goodbyes – I just hate the attention that comes with them.

So let’s keep this short and sweet. Today was my last day of work at HenkinSchultz, a job that treated me well and taught me a lot and really I couldn’t have asked for a better place to break into the creative services world. And, in ten days, I begin again, doing what I’d hoped I’d be doing, workin’ the Web and enjoying being a full fledged part of making things on the Internet, at Blend Interactive.

In the meantime – an expanse of time in which I will literally be unemployed – I’m going to make myself scarce. As of tonight, I’m going off the grid. I’m recharging and resting and cleaning out the cobwebs as I prepare to change my direction entirely.

Thanks to HenkinSchultz for taking a risk four years ago. I appreciate it.

See you in 10 days, Internet.

At times, I’m kind of negative. I’m sorry for that. Don’t take it personally. Don’t allow your publication to take it personally. Don’t allow your candidate, or your beliefs, or whatever it is I’ve somehow slighted to take it personally.

See, we’re all part of a vast network of communication. Me. You. All of us. We connect through words and sometimes those words aren’t what you want to hear but I’ve gotten to a point in my life where I feel voicing my opinions and airing my quirks outweigh the silence I once mistook for politeness.

With that freedom, I may have become a little negative.

But that’s only a perception.

Because it’s allowed me to be positive, too. And it’s given that positivity a more genuine stature.

There’s a fragile ecosystem of delicate egos in the creative world – an ecosystem that I freely claim a part of – that frantically searches for reassurance and kudos and can’t live without constant adoration. You guys, I get it. I’m there. Everyone who’s ever put out a small slice of creativity has been there. Unless we’re wasted on old man whiskey, we create both for the reaction and for the art.

In fact, that reaction is the central driving force of art.

If I criticize your work, I’m not criticizing you as a person. If I don’t follow you back on Twitter, or ignore your Facebook friend requests, it’s not because I hate you. If I don’t say anything at all, it’s not because I wasn’t paying attention. We’re all adults here. We’re all having a conversation, even when we’re not saying a thing.

It just feels like, sometimes, if the conversation begins with critique, it will certainly end with the offended party cowering; hiding under the covers.

If something you do isn’t up to par, I’ll tell you. Don’t take it personally. Just know that I have high standards. Standards that I, myself, couldn’t probably even live up to.

And if something you do is mindblowingly awesome – like, tell all of my friends and yell it from the rooftops awesome – then know that whatever it is, it really caused a reaction with me.

For what that’s worth, I suppose.

Looking over this, I understand that I’m probably trying to convince myself of these things. But remember: we release our creativity so others can view and respond. And it’s that act of release that frees us complaint.

We’re opening ourselves for the world, you know. And haters? They always gonna hate.

It’s the ones that do nothing BUT that you’ve got to watch for.

So, basically, there’s this neurosis that drives through my brain every few days that forces me to wonder where my adoring fan base is. Why aren’t people paying attention. Why should I be shackled to the bedframe of insecurity and forced into submission, my frantic tears soaking into the cracks between the floorboards, my ego completely withered and now resembling a wasabi pea I found under the seat in my car just the other day. A neurosis that says, “talent is audience, and without audience you have no talent, and so maybe I should create a tumblr account to further cement my fractured attention span.”

When I’m in this stage, I make plans. Just like you do, when you’re in this stage.

And if you say you’ve never reached this stage – the “Oh My God I’m A Hack And Is Everything I’m Doing Even Worth It” stage, where, yes, you understand that life is more than your craft and your kids are great and you’re happy but still wouldn’t it be great to be noticed as some kind of forward thinking whatever whatever – you’re lying.

Sometimes the plans are simple. I should (finally) get around to redesigning the blog. I should (finally) post my 100 songs of the decade list. I should shunt a hobby or two. I should turn my computer off, drink a beer and watch TV.

Sometimes the plans are hard. I should stop worrying about being the driest person on Twitter, because, let’s face it, I’m far over-matched and that dude @fireland has it all wrapped up. I should aspire to be less Merlin Mann, and more Corey Vilhauer. I should aspire to be less ANYONE, and more ME.

I should aspire to be found on my own, instead of screaming into the abyss.

I know, right? What, did you accidentally StumbleUpon some 13-year-old’s LiveJournal page?

That’s the point. See, my next plan is going to be the hardest. It’s called, “Just write, you moron, and leave the woe-is-me bullshit for those cat blogs.”

What makes it hard: I like talking about that stuff. So, you know, bear with me while I turn my attentions to stuff with a little more weight. And thanks for sticking around so far.