Blogger Burnout Blues

I'm suffering I think from blogger burnout. My goggle reader exceeded 500 unread entries and rather than acting as inspiration for my own writings, they've instead overwhelmed me with...shit I can't even describe it. I'm drowning in words and opinions I guess. Everytime my mind casts about for a topic to write about it's unable to tune into one thought, like receiving all radio stations on a single channel.

But I am listening to podcasts. The one I've linked to above is put together by my fellow atheist bloggers (which is handy since I'm so far behind on reading it's nice I can at least listen to what's going on) and a wonderful addition to my podcast list.

I have a shiny new and powerful computer coming this week. I'm hoping that having a new environment will give me inspiration. In the meantime, as I wait for my Nonbelieving Literati book to arrive (Not the End of the World by Christopher Brookymyre) I'm soothing my tired brain with true literature: Monster Island, Monster Nation, & Monster Planet - A trilogy of zombie novels.

Nothing cures blogger burnout like zombies.

Sick of The Plague

How long has it been since I’ve written anything? I’m afraid to look. I’ve not been inspired lately.

UNTIL NOW.

No, actually I’m lying. I’m not really inspired now either. This is a guilt motivated post. I’m here. I exist. This blog hasn’t died. It’s in hibernation waiting for ideas to percolate.

The Nonbelieving Literati book choice, The Plague, couldn’t get me going. I found it dull. I had hoped for some good post-apocalypse, Lucifer’s Hammer, kind of excitement, which is what perhaps set my expectations on the wrong path. The death in the book was too removed. Body counts listed in the paper told of the rising crisis, but it made it easy for me and the characters to ignore it and wonder when things would get back to normal.

The reporter trapped in the town was supposed to, I guess, give me some sense of urgency. Being cut off from his lover in Paris he’s motivated to try and find a way to circumvent the bureaucracy and be allowed to leave. I felt more that he was driven by a sense of entitlement than any true feeling for his lover.

The doctor goes around his business, exhausted and overworked, but mechanical. He recommends the government do more to handle the situation, but seems to have a fatalistic acceptance when they don’t.

Based on the other Literati reviews, the book does pick up after the point I abandoned it. As The Greenbelt wrote,

This book, to use a cliché, has its picture in the dictionary next to "starts slowly".

And for me, that’s also where it ended. I couldn’t find anyone to care about or connect with. The impression I had of the town was hot, dusty, dull, and industrial. Not a place I’d want to spend time in neither in person nor in my mind.

Had they at least thrown in a zombie or two I could have been excited, but I guess zombies don’t qualify as high literature.