Since the school year ended, I’ve really been enjoying having the mental space and energy to get back to writing. I’ve also been working my way through this workbook on better blogging, not so that I can be the next Dooce or anything, but just as a fun challenge.
Per that program, this is my list post, specifically a list within a post, paying tribute to this here blog as a huge part of my writing life.
Without any further ado:
It’s established the writing habit for me, so that I can look back over the past seven years or so and know that I’ve been consistently writing, even if it was just a paragraph or two, not daily, but regularly.
It’s kept me writing regularly, through rocky and even harrowing times. As I’ve said before, I don’t blog much about those times, but I would have hated for any of them to derail me in a pursuit that has been so important to me.
I can write much better, much quicker, than ever before. This has been a big help to me when I am facing grades-and-comment-writing for school, but also it’s made me a much more productive writer. Once my girls were born, and now juggling full-time teaching, there’s no way I would get anything written if I clung to the luxury of needing enormous amounts of time and quiet to be able to write.
It gives me a public audience, but one I have to earn and one that keeps me accountable. I have never gone pedal to the metal as far as earning blog readers, but I do think a lot about how I write here and what people might want to read, and I do feel guilty if my blog sits too long without a post. I’ve made some friendships as a result of blogging, and I like to think that is partially because of how I represent myself here, as a writer and also as a person.
I can’t think of a better way to work on developing a personal voice. In the past few months, I’ve been given compliments on my writing voice by editors and several friends who are professional writers, saying that it is clear and distinct, and I owe it all to blogging.
It does not detract from my writing energy. I’ve never seen this blog as a “platform” for a bigger project and have never expected to earn money from it (and I have never earned a dollar directly from this blog). So I don’t spend hours worrying about SEO, Adsense, publicity strategies or worrying that I’ve “sold out.” My blogging time is spent either blogging/writing or tinkering, which doesn’t use writing energy and has other benefits. I’d even say that blogging can sometimes get me into a writing groove, which will then carry over into other writing tasks.
I’ve become better about rationing and deploying the writing energy I do have. This summer, I’ve spent time in my poem notebooks, drafted a personal essay and have ideas for a few more, wrote a poetry book review and website review, and am drafting a feature for Instructify. In short, I have generally been experiencing a slow but steady writing resurgence, which is a great feeling after my drought this spring. Each of these tasks has been accomplished piecemeal, as I jot down phrases and paragraphs, patch them together, and then polish the finished piece, and being able to write in small chunks like this is a direct result of the years I’ve invested in blogging. My reviews for Instructify are supposed to be 200-300 words, with a conversational tone: sounds like blogging to me, except I’ll get paid!
It’s helped me get writing jobs. One of the reasons I switched to WordPress is the easy ability to have static posts, which adds website-style capabilities to a blog. It’s been wonderful to have a way to collect and regularly update my writing clips, and be able to easily and quickly send links to editors with pitches. I also like being able to look over my clips and see how I’ve progressed and where I might want to go next.
It’s helped control my profile as a writer. If you Google my name after reading one of my articles online or in print, or when considering whether to hire me for a writing gig, you will likely land on this website, which is chock-full of links to other writing of mine, as well as a wealth of several hundred blog posts. Not only that, but it’s helped me be deliberate about what I want that impression to be, since I have full control and want to take advantage of it.
I’d love to hear any feedback you have on this post, whether it’s as one of my readers or as a writer or blogger yourself.
Like this:
Be the first to like this post.
