(If you’re short on time, skip to the bottom for numbered instructions).

Clicking away at the keyboard, he suddenly found himself grabbing the mouse, about to highlight and delete everything.  He couldn’t possibly publish it.  He was a good dude; what would people think?

He sometimes wanted to write some horror posts–he wanted to graphically describe the most gruesome paths out of this life.

He sometimes wanted to write some posts from a women’s perspective–he wanted to have some fun exploring how the female human navigates this world.

He wanted to write without abandon.  He wanted to swear, he wanted to be passionate.  More times than not he wanted to cause people who knew him to say, “I can’t believe he wrote that.”

But as soon as the words manifested themselves on the screen, he’d hesitate.  “What if they don’t like it?  What if they think I went too far?” he’d ask himself.  “Ah, fuck it,” he’d answer, clicking the publish button.  And then he’d feel it–a rush like no other.

“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!”

He’d then laugh out loud thinking, “If people only knew how much energy I put into each post…they’d think I was nnnuts.”

And there was something more.  Behind all of this he would tell himself that his daughter might someday read his posts.  And if he guessed correctly, by that time she would be fascinated that he wasn’t quite the man she’d taken him for all those years.  He’d hope that if she wasn’t there yet, this realization would be the weight that would finally and forever tilt the scales of how she’d live the rest of her life towards courageously, without fear, without worry, and without anxiety.  Just the way he strove to.

Instructions for How To Make Blogging Thrilling

Step 1 — WRITE what you think.

Step 2 — DO NOT DELETE what you wrote.

Step 3 — PUBLISH what you wrote.