What I realized is that it's all about the concept. Before I came up with this blog, I was casting about looking for a hook for my site. Most really successful blogs out there had a gimmick and a tightly defined niche. I'm thinking of Julie Powell, who over the span of a year cooked all 542 recipes in Julia Child's cookbook. As she documented her ups and her downs, she built a following, a community. Along the way, she also got a big fat book contract and soon Amy Adams was playing her in an Oscar-nominated movie Julie and Julia. I want to have Amy Adams play me one day. Sure, I'm a lanky 6 foot tall dude with asthma but Adams is a talented professional. I'm sure she'll pull it off. But first, I need to come up with a killer idea.
All of the books on art blogging say that the key to building that coveted following is to show your progress. So with that in mind, here's some of the ideas I haven't pursued. Yet.
1. Go to every party in a year as if you were expecting it to be a costume party. Blog your experience. Publish book.
2. Direct a shot-by-shot remake of Gus Van Sant's 'Psycho.' Blog experience. Publish book.
3. Eat nothing but corn nuts for a year. Blog your experience. Publish book.
4. Spend a year living in a trailer filled with 200 ferrets. Blog experience. Publish book.
5. Get that artisan gasoline business off the ground. Blog experience. Publish book.
6. By any means necessary, seduce actor Tom Skerritt. Blog experience. Publish book.
7. Disavow current identity. Insist that I am instead a loose affiliation of conflicting motives. Call myself 'Unit No. 74.' Blog experience. Publish e-book.
8. Walk across America planting kumquat trees. Get dubbed 'Johnny Kumquat.' Trademark name. Blog experience. Publish book.
9. Every day dress up as a different pope. Do all 265. Blog your experience. Publish book.
10. Develop my street cred. Blog experience. Publish book.
11. Apparently when you get a PhD in Finland you also get a top hat and a sword. So...get a Finnish PhD. Wear said top hat and sword everyday. Blog experience. Publish book.
12. Invent a language with one word and an infinite number of tones. Blog experience. Publish book.
13. Try and work Byzantine emperor Basil II (AKA The Bulgar Slayer) into every conversation. Do this for a year. Blog experience. Publish book.
14. Send nude photos of myself to every member of congress. Hire lawyer. Blog experience. Publish book.
15. Develop a completely tight 20 minute long standup routine in Esperanto. Tour America. Blog Experience. Publish book.
16. Write an epic palindrome poem about the life and absurd death of President James A. Garfield, America's first and only ambidextrous president. Blog experience. Publish book.
17. Construct yurt made of meat. Live in it a year. Blog experience. Publish book. (Likely book title -- 'Bears: Why You Shouldn't Live in a Yurt Made of Meat.')
18. Write a nine-part erotic fiction series about the Supreme Court called 'The Penal System.' Blog experience.
19. Rabelais in Gargantua and Pantagruel wrote that the best way to wipe your bum is by using the neck of a young goose. See if this is actually the case. Blog experience. Publish book.
20. Reenact Meg Ryan's famous diner scene from 'When Harry Met Sally...' at each and every presidential library in the land. Blog experience. Publish book.
21. Send William Shatner a turkey baster every day for a year. He knows why. Blog experience. Publish book.
22. Declare that you're from the future. Warn against squirrels. Blog experience. Publish book. (Rake in money when squirrels stage a worldwide attack.)
23. Become a semi-feral wild man of the Australian outback. Earn the moniker "Johnny Wombat." Blog experience. Publish book.
24. Make a behind-the-scenes movie of Andy Warhol's 'Empire' that is 8 hours long and one shot showing Warhol hanging out, changing film rolls, and eating soup. Blog production experience. Publish book.
25. Perfect my one man show about life and love in Saskatchewan called 'The Regina Monologue.' Blog experience. Publish book.
26. Spend a year with my shorts filled with yogurt. Blog experience. Publish book. (Likely title: How to grow flesh-eating bacteria -- why you shouldn't put yogurt in your shorts.)
27. Re-edit the end of 'Jurassic Park' so that Laura Dern dies horribly while Sam Neill survives only to suffer crippling guilt. Blog experience. Publish book.
28. Create an audio book based on the erotic fiction of Henry Miller as recorded by Chewbacca. Blog experience. Publish book.
29. Draw portraits of all 47 vice presidents in American history with octopuses on their heads. Blog experience. Publish book.