I tend to adhere to Shakespeare’s notion that I don’t know what I think until I see what I write.  Some say that I write a lot.  I’ve even been called prolific, though mostly by hacks and those suffering from typing disabilities.  But the truth is that every time I begin to write a post, I am never quite sure where it will end up.  It’s as much an adventure for me as for anybody else.

During the course of a regular day, I may see a dozen things that capture my interest, whether news, commentary, decisions or something entirely unrelated to anything else I’ve ever written about.  I save them up for the hour I spend in the early morning writing this blog.  Sometimes, there will be a dozen, even two, items that make it onto my radar.  I then pick which ones still interest me enough to write about them.   They don’t interest you?  That’s cool.  I don’t write to “build audience,” become a “thought leader” or increase my google page rank.  I don’t even know what my google page rank is.  If my posts are boring or irrelevant to you, why not start your own blog and write about things that interest you?  You’re allowed.

But once I’ve decided to write about a subject, I find out for the very first time where it’s heading.  Naturally, I have an idea beforehand where I think it’s going to go, but as I write the post things often go in unanticipated directions.  Sometimes I come to realizations about issues that the cold, hard words on the computer screen force me to accept.  The mind has the amazing ability to make tacit logical leaps, but the flaw in thinking is immediately revealed by the written word.  There’s no getting around the logical gap when it’s staring you in the face.

While it doesn’t happen often, it does happen.  After ten minutes of solid writing, I stare at the words and realize that I hate what I’ve just done.  It’s there, but it’s wrong.  The words don’t reflect my thoughts.  The reason is fundamentally flawed.  The post sucks.  I hate it and I want nothing to do with it.  It’s just plain awful.

I grant you that not every post at Simple Justice is a stroke of brilliance. Indeed, the best bet is that none meet that standard, though I think I’ve got some good stuff stashed away in the more than 2000 posts here at the moment.  But I stand behind each and every one, for better or worse.  Sure, some are more interesting that others, and certainly some are better written. But they are mine, warts and all. 

When I look at what I’ve written and ask myself what was I thinking, I know that I’ve gone seriously awry.  It happened again yesterday, as I put the finishing line on a post about the Rockefeller Drug Laws after reading a story in the New York Times announcing, for the 43rd time, its death.  These stories make angry, both because they are simply false and due to the utter absence of any substantive information about the changes on the table.  So may reports are replete with rhetoric and devoid of fact.  I see this all the time, and I always wonder if anybody else is bothered.  Does anybody else notice?  I’m sure others do, but you don’t read much complaining about it.

Sometimes, I feel as if I need to put the post down and step away.  I save it as a draft with the intention of going back later, reading it over, and then making a decision as to whether it deserves to see the light of day.  Rarely does this sequence of events actually happen.  I know that the post is no good and should never have been written, and going back later just reminds me of what a lousy post I wrote and how awful it is.  It doesn’t get any better with age.

When you crank out as many blog posts as I do, you have to expect some to be mutts.  In some instances, I know in advance that the subject matter will be of only limited interest, and that few people will bother to read it.  That’s fine, since it reflects my interests and was never intended to capture the imagination of some mythical audience.  As much as I appreciate the fact that people spend a few minutes here reading what I’ve written, I don’t write for you. 

[Hint: For the latest crowd of people who are upset with me because I won’t let you use the comments here to launch your self-promotional exposure in the blawgosphere, or seize upon a tangential point in one of my posts in order to promote your own quasi-unrelated agenda, the fact that Simple Justice exists as a platform for me to write should clue you in.  This is not a democracy, and I don’t give a damn what you think the purposes of a blawg should be.  Push me and you’re out of here, and both of us will sleep well tonight either way.]

About an hour after I saved my Rockefeller Drug Law post yesterday, and after I did a host of obligatory duties that have a passing relationship to how I pay the bills, I came back to the place on my blawg where I can control what gets published and what does not.  I deleted it.  Poof.  It’s gone.  It never happened and it will never exist again.

In a funny way, it’s painful to have a story that interests me enough to write about it, only to delete it afterward.  The story is left on the table, to fade into the great black hole of things that warranted my thought but never made it to publication.  While I have no doubt that my decision to delete it, to make it disappear, was the right one, I’m still bothered that I left it on the table.  In the back of my head, I think that I could have done better and I’m disappointed in myself.