Editor's Notebook: The dreaded editorial writer's block

I really didn’t know what to write for my editorial this week. In fact, as I write this paragraph, I still don’t.

Some weeks there is just something so daunting about the task. Not that I’m worried about saying what I think on a subject, in fact ask anyone and my issue has always been more about remembering to filter what I think sometimes.

On the reporter side of the world that comes a lot easier for me, it is my job to report what is said or done. So I do that to the best of my ability and I always keep any personal opinion out of it. In my real life it’s sometimes harder to bite my tongue or “think before I speak.”

The feared editorial lies somewhere between the two. I am able to say how I feel on a subject, yet I have the benefit of being able to walk away from the topic before coming back to look at the piece through a fresh set of eyes and a clear mind. And let’s face it, I also have to mind my “P and Q’s” so to speak.

I cannot go off on a tangent on a subject and just say whatever the heck comes to my mind. For one thing, I am a “working editor” that still writes articles as a reporter. I need to be able to write about a subject and not worry about whether or not I put my opinion all over the subject in an editorial the week before. And truthfully there is a fine line between sparking a conversation amongst your readers and angering a whole community with a topic.

I do have lots of little things on my mind, but this week it is all random and scattered.

I had wisdom teeth pulled last week. It wasn't a planned procedure, it sucked and I'm still playing catch up at home and at work. I spent the night after it was done crying in a bowl of ice cream, literally crying, about missing the Cat Creek hearing after months of reporting on the subject. Yep I turn into a big emotional baby when I don't feel good and the medication gets to me. Plus I don't like not being able to finish something that is expected of me. I hate it.

Maybe I could figure out what to write about if my mind stayed on one subject for more then a few minutes. But now it is jumping from work commitments to my teenage daughter. You see my husband and I have to make a decision on whether or not she will return to Mountain Home to start her first year of high school or continue to stay on my dad's ranch. And we only have a few days left to do it so concentrating on anything is kind of hard. I miss her like crazy, but I know the ranch life is good for her and she is getting to experience a lifestyle that few kids do these days and more probably should. She is learning that there are things more important then what she feels like doing in a day. She now knows that the animals eat before she does, that it doesn't matter if you don't feel like moving the water or checking on a fence when something needs done on the ranch you do it. No questions asked. There are things bigger than you in this world and what better way for a 14-year-old girl to figure that out then astride a big leggy horse, and she has a good partner in her nana's mare Riley, sitting on a mountain top looking at the Camas Prairie and the ranches cattle strung out for miles below her. I know all of these things are great for her and the winter ranch is even closer to home in King Hill, but I still wouldn't be able to see her every morning or annoy her by asking a "million questions about her day" in the afternoons. It is such a hard decision.

I would like to say all of these scattered thoughts and typing helped me find something great to grab a hold of and talk about in this editorial or even helped me grasp some clarity in my thought process, but it didn't. I truly thought at some point I would have some type of "aha" moment. I would then erase a bunch of paragraphs and write something with some structure, something meaningful, but I guess some weeks that just doesn't happen.