It’s been said that the average individual entertains 50,000 thoughts everyday. Considering the fact that most people sleep 8 hours a day that amounts to an average of 3,125 thoughts per hour for the 16 hours that we are awake. Most of those thoughts, of course, are so common, trivial, and trite that we aren’t even aware of them. Other thoughts that register on our consciousness are useful and necessary for our nine to five lives, but certainly not interesting enough to write about on our blogs or here on Factoidz. While still other thoughts are so thought provoking and controversial that many writers are hesitant to share them on their blogs or here on Factoidz.
Ngozi Nwabineli’s recent Factoid, Why male / female friendships work well was just such an article. It’s thought provoking as well as controversial. "Why male / female friendships work well" exemplifies the best of creative writing. The things that we read should arrest our attention and make us think. Good writing arouses our minds and provokes us to think about what the writer is saying to us and nothing is more arousing and thought provoking then the controversial.
Reading Ngozi’s excellent article made me stop and think about the things that I write about on Factoidz. The things that I have written the most about here on Factoidz–home improvements, auto mechanics, photography, writing, etc-have been useful to my readers, my site statistics attest to that, but they are far from being though provoking and/or controversial. "How-To" stuff by it’s very nature is dry reading, it’s not meant to be thought provoking and definitely not meant to be controversial. It’s what I do for a living so writing about it comes naturally for me. On the other hand, that doesn’t mean that I never have a controversial thought. Trust me, I have had many very controversial thoughts, I just haven’t written about them.
When I first got my start as a freelance writer, my writing was nothing if not controversial. I wrote about crime, police misconduct, prisons, sex, and the like. Then I started doing operations manuals employee handbooks, and other technical writing and I fell into the rut of writing about "safe" subjects. I will continue to write about the same kind of things that I have been writing about here on Factoidz but I’m also going to start writing about the more controversial topics that are important to me. Ngozi has inspired me to let it all hang out once again. One of the greatest freedoms that we have in this great country of ours is the freedom of speech, so no matter whether you agree or disagree on the stand I will take on any given subject I would still like to hear your comments on the subject and the position I will take.
