There is a certain blog I’ve been following now for well over a year. It is serendipitous, hosted on Google’s blog service Blogger. I found it by accident one night while reading a friend’s Blogger blog, by clicking on that little link at the top of the page that reads Next Blog; serendipitous was The Next Blog, and I loved it instantly.
Honestly, I am somewhat jealous of the blog’s owner. She lives in central New Hampshire, an area that Edith and I have vacationed in frequently both before and after kids. She also understands the importance of simplicity, as exhibited in her photographs and the narratives that accompany them. I used to be one of a handful of followers of serendipitous until the blog was featured as a blog of the day several months ago; it now boasts well over 2,000 (that’s right, two THOUSAND) followers. I’m not sure how many of those folks are regular readers of this blog, but that is still an astonishing audience.
So, I happened to be reading serendipitous this morning when I discover that the author is quite prolific, and maintains many other blogs. By following a few links, I came across this piece that she wrote, and I found I identified with the following section:
Usually I post late in the evening, just before the end of my day. Throughout the day, I think about an idea, a notion, the content of the day’s post. I find myself composing phrases at odd times. If I come up with something I really like, I often make a note to myself. I even started a running list of ideas about which to post – old stories and memories, things that are on my mind, that sort of thing. When I finally do sit down to blog, I have my dictionary application open so I can check spelling and reference the thesaurus. I compose the day’s post, then I reread and revise. Mull over my choices of words. Vary my sentence structure. Make sure the paragraph flows. Try to be concise but clear. I work hard on the ending trying for a big finish. When I think I’ve got it right, I publish – and then shut down for the night. But in the morning with coffee, after I’ve caught up on the news, after I’ve checked email and the weather, I read the post again. If it needs tweaking, I do it then. I find it helps in the revision process to have that little bit of distance from the original writing session. … Read More
I should not be surprised at all that other blog authors have the same approach to writing posts, but she describes exactly my thought process when coming up with ideas to post. I guess good writing habits are not unique.
What do I know about writing? Not a damn thing, but I do it anyway. I used to write more freely than I do know, but I’m a better writer now, technically, than before. I used to have an audience of one: me. I wrote for my own sake, when I was my only reader, in a manner which was much less cautious and much more open about thoughts, feelings. I wrote in spiral notebooks, in ink, or sometimes in pencil; I wrote in cursive, and other times in printed letters. From 1976 through the early 1990s, I wrote sometimes daily, sometimes much less frequently. Journal writing kept me very much in touch with what was going on in my life. Today, however, as I write in this blog, I am very aware that I am no longer my only audience, and I find myself hesitating to write openly and freely as I once did. I sometimes struggle with composition of sentences, with word choice, with context, and my writing is more labored than it used to be. I often feel that the writings here are forced, and uninspired, or fail to do justice to the feelings I am trying to convey. I sometimes think that my writing is just shit.
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