Why I Don't Blog

Welp, it looks as though I've only posted twice since 2011 (not that anyone's counting) but lately I've had a lot of thoughts and a little time and felt the need to give this blogging thing another try.

So. New name. "Laughter like a lion" is a line from G.K. Chesterton's poem "The Wise Men." Read the full last stanza for some context:

"Hark! Laughter like a lion wakes
     To roar to the resounding plan.
And the whole heaven shouts and shakes
     For God Himself is born again,
And we are little children walking
     Through the snow and rain."

I really like this poem. I don't understand it by a long shot, but there's something about the lines (and that one line in particular) that stirs something inside me. Call it joy, the Flash, inspiration--it's pretty amazing, whatever it is.

So, me not blogging. The first blog I was ever exposed to was "Insanity Comes Naturally" by Anna, a person whose writing I very much admired. Really. Her writing is stunning. I still get swept away when I go through her archives and look at her poetry or musings on life and God. I wanted more than anything to write like that--to be able to express my thoughts in a coherent way, and online is awesome because it won't burn or accidentally get deleted.

Great, so I'd decided I was going to start a blog. But what kind of blog? Awesomely deep and writerly, like Anna's, with prose and poetry and musings? A place to spew all the crazy, funny stories of farm life/college life/life life? An actual, serious blog about writing or Christianity or something non-fictiony? Therein lay my problem--I WANTED TO DO ALL THE THINGS.

Actually, that's still my problem. I don't want to be just deep or just funny or just intellectual...I want to be ALL of them. So I deeply apologize if this blog ends up being a weird conglomeration of random things. Including stories about scorpions in the shower and how my characters talk to me sometimes. But I've been looking for a creative vent for months and I've finally given in and decided to give this one more try.

So, I decided I could blog about all the things. But then there was the trouble of the TITLE (Odyssean Journeyish Quest Thing just wasn't cutting it) and that's where Chesterton saved the day because "Laughter like a Lion" sounds both funny (laughter) and serious (lions are serious) and deep (why is the lion laughing?).

I don't anticipate readers. I really don't, because I've written papers about how the "Blogosphere" (y'all, that's the technical term for this imaginary internet world) is just too many people with too much to say to too few readers. But I do anticipate growth, and writing practice, and hopefully an artifact for me to find someday, carefully preserved in the dusty virtual archives of the internet.

(yes I know the internet isn't dusty, stop looking at me like that)