2026 Essay camp #4 - structure

I guess it is obvious by now that I am very confused about the differences between a blog, a journal, and an essay - the latter sounding far more impressive and slightly intimidating with a far more easily discernable structure.  And yet, many essays are still quite personal, especially the reflective or lyrical ones.  The structure is the same as a musical composition or news story - introduction, content, conclusion.   I've played about with different formatting, but have settled into a pattern.  

For introductions, I write about the point in time that I find myself in:

    Today is the 6th day of the 13th week, the 27th day of the 3rd month, the 86th day of 2026                    [sometimes     rather whimsically adding how many shopping days until Christmas as an aside] 

I then proceed to anchor myself even more firmly into the timeline by listing the holidays - international, national, global, et al - celebrated this day, sometimes making personal comments, sometimes providing context on what the holiday is actually for:

• Celebrate Exchange Day
• Endometriosis March Day
• Frozen Dead Guys Day
• International Medical Science Liaison Day
• International Whiskey Day
• National Joe Day
• National Medical Billers Day
• National Scribble Day
• National Spanish Paella Day
• No Homework Day
• Quirky Country Music Song Titles Day
• Viagra Day
• World Cheese Day
• World Theater Day

This is usually completed with the phase of the moon if significant and where Voyager 1 is in space if the social media account has been updated 

Next I post the quote of the day.  This more-or-less sets the tone for the post and there are various sources that I use, although I do rely heavily on BrainyQuote because I can easily search their database for an appropriate quip 

    "The structure of a play is always the story of how the birds came home to roost."

    ~ Arthur Miller

If the person quoted is not very well known, I attach biographical information

And then I write about whatever.   Sometimes it is truly babbling, sometimes it is narrative, sometimes the whole thing flows and sometimes it doesn't.  I do have a habit of going silent when I am processing events and that makes me an uneven blogger.  I have the same problem with maintaining any form of written correspondence actually, veering wildly from cries of anguish or gushes of giddiness to pedantry to silence.  Makes it hard to build and keep readership.    

Often I use little pictures to illustrate what is in the body of the text and to provide a more visually pleasing format  

The conclusion is my weakness - how do you wind up a babble?  I often find myself signing off rather than tying up the loose ends - usually adding another picture that basically concludes with a "oh well, here is a picture of my cat or my balcony view" vibe [1 1/2 years after moving, I still miss that view] 

So I do have a start, a middle, and an end [albeit a rather wobbly one] for my blog posts. 

Does this make my scribbles into essays?  

I rather doubt it.