About writing vs. living

Writing well takes time, whether you're writing a blog or a news story or a novel or a grocery list. Because even a grocery list can be done well--spelled correctly, organized logically, formatted neatly.
My grocery lists, lately, and sadly, have been something short of great literature.
And my blog posts have been nothing short of, well, empty, which in my mind is better than being poorly written.
As an enthusiastic reader and hackneyed-writer, I love good writing, more than love, I just adore it. I want to jump inside good writing and just wallow around in it. I want to read it and reread it and enjoy it and admire it and be jealous of it and be smarter and better and fuller and different because of it.
When you're a reader who attempts to be a writer, too, you start to expect more out of your own writing. A depth of thought. A polished presentation. An intriguing beginning, a logical middle, a memorable ending. Dead-on description. Good grammar. Always keeping your reader in mind, with a lust to read more.
At least in the print days, when writing seemed ... harder.
Blogs, it seems to me, are the crack candy of writing--so easy to open, so easy to snort out words, so easy to fool yourself you're doing a good thing for yourself, or for "your writing," and even, heaven knows, for "your readers," all eight, God bless you, every one. Blogs let you pretend you're a better writer than you are, or a more serious writer, or a funnier one, or even, a more popular one.
And makes me wonder: is blogging just digital journalling? Public journalling, maybe? Or is it practice writing--practice for some writing more ... substantial? Or is it, indeed, an art form of and by itself?
Anyway:
I'm writing about writing because I've been kind of busy living, and consequently not writing about ... living.
And the reason I feel kind of guilty about it is, I was taught by writing teachers with this as their mantra:
WRITE EVERY DAY.
Well crap! Before blogs, I went years not writing every day--my journals and sparse free lance work are inked/printed witnesses to that. But something about the accessibility of, or maybe public nature of, a blog makes me feel I owe it something more than what I gave my notebook-journal.
So that brings me here:
When I don't write (nearly) every day, on any of my blogs, I feel ... guilty. I feel guilty for not partaking of the crack candy of blogging--or for not having the discipline I should.
Maybe if I had some big excuse like "My dog died," or "I had a heart transplant," or "My house floated away in the flood that happened after the tornado, directly after the earthquake" I'd feel better.
Instead, it's "We went to a ballgame," and "We went to the lake," and also "I cleaned my entire house because it was so gross I almost died of untidiness."
Because I'm a grownup, I know that's okay. I'm not going to be wearing the cincture because I neglected writing for awhile.
But because I find myself not only lusting for reading, but also wanting to create good reading myself, I want to lose myself in writing the same way I lose myself in reading ... ah, is it guilt, then, or desire? I'm a little too tired to decide. But could anyone ask for better motivation to write? Guilt and desire?
Maybe I should start a new blog....

About omphaloskepsis

And what might that be, you ask? Just look down and lift your shirt. There it is. Your navel.
From that most reliable of sources, Wikipedia:

"Omphaloskepsis is the contemplation of one's navel as an aid to meditation. It is well known in the usually jocular phrase directed towards self-absorbed pursuits: "contemplating one's navel" or "navel-gazers". This criticism is also often leveled at professions which are interested in themselves: movies about Hollywood, for example, or television shows about television writers.

"From the Greek: omphalos (navel) + skepsis. The word has several other forms, such as omphaloskeptic, for someone who engages in navel-gazing, and omphaloskeptical, meaning to be in a self-absorbed state."

Is blogging the ultimate navel-gazement, jocular or not? I think it just might be. Because what do most of use write about? Us. And do we do it very well? No. And do many people read it? Not really.

For example, Sitemeter tells me that last week, 75 people visited these very pages, staying an average of less than a minute.

That number actually surprised me. Not like I did a lot to invite people to gaze at my navel along with me, although all are warmly welcomed. Hi!

And how about this post? It's a double-dip of my navel! I'm writing about ME, which it's all about, and I'm also writing about writing about ME!

But the former very-bad-teacher in me (short stint at IPFW vainly attempting to teach students magazine writing, oh my goodness, I apologize to all of them for my ineptness) has to celebrate all this writing. I used to assign that each student keep a journal throughout the semester, and I'd check it--not for content, just that people were making the effort to write. every. day. Of course they cheated. Nowadays, if I were badly teaching, I'd just assign 'em all Blogger, and I could really check in a very few minutes whether they had written anything or not. God, I love technology.

So we write on, whether about ourselves and our days or about subjects that obsess us. Or about our navels. Just keep the pictures to yourself.

Well, how 'bout you? Are you omphaloskeptical?