It’s the beginning of a new year and I’m facing the feeling so many writers dread—the fear that I will never compose another decent sentence—the dread that I will not only have nothing to say, but also that what I do write will limp along badly—boring, boring prose that no one with even half a literary brain would lay claim to.

Part of what frustrates me is my seeming lack of focus, the realization as this blog evolves that my interests are too eclectic.  I enjoy a little of this and a lot of that and that and that.  With Sara and I traveling so much, I feel my writing is both literally and stylistically all over the map, sometimes funny, sometimes deadly serious.  Are my own eccentric inclinations exaggerated by the sheer geographical range, if nothing else?

 It might be boring, but I sometimes wish I were one of those people with a singular focus!  Practically speaking, how does one lend cohesion to a blog that’s at one time or another about Haiti, Vietnam, art, poetry, dogs, travel, disaster response, and election fraud?  Then when you expand that list even further by adding topics I’ve yet to address, but plan to (my work in India this past year, for example), it becomes a dizzying mish-mash that would give even the most open-minded reader a case of topical whiplash.

So, my questions this New Year’s Day remain:

–How singularly focused does a blog need to be?

–What makes you keep reading one blog but not another?

–What is your biggest fear as a writer?

–Would you be willing to discuss any of these issues in a post to your blog?

I’d love to know I’m not alone with these writerly fears for the coming year.  How do you manage your own creative insecurities?