Blogging as Writing Practice?

My father shared something interesting with me just now. He was checking the hits on our church’s website, and evidently there have been something like 437 clicks from my blog to that site. I’m impressed! To be honest, though, the first thought that struck me was, People click on my blog?? Which prompted me to hope online and check my stats. Sure enough, people stop by. The traffic is nothing to boast about, but I’m pleased. Great job, people who peek at my blog.

This phenomenon inspires me to be a better blogger. I know that what I’ve written here hasn’t been spectacular, but I know that I have been given some talent in writing. I also know that I’ve been tossing around in my head the idea of doing some kind of writing major–journalism or something along those lines–in the future. That remains to be seen. Regardless, I believe that I can be a better writer. I also believe that daily practice is key in mastering the art of writing.

Somewhere on my list of Ambitions-and-Things-I-Want-to-Do-Before-I-Die is this desire I have had to become a faithful, creative, and inspiring writer for some sort of periodical (most likely a blog). I have been inspired by the likes of the Mahaney Women, Chase McFadden, Renée Schuls-Jacobson, and countless others. Why not work on achieving that goal? It’s going to take hard work anyway, so I might as well start early.

My problem is that I get easily burnt out when I’m writing something that other people will read, even when it’s short and un-serious, because I tend to be a perfectionist. I think blogging more consistently will help with this problem, because, as I gathered  the other day from thinking about this superlatively fascinating article by Joshua Foer in the New York Times, one of the best ways to improve in a skill is to work at it faster than usual and allow yourself to make mistakes so that your brain can figure out its weak points and overcome them. Cool, and I think this might be a good way to work that out.

Another problem is that I am typically unread on major current events and most other topics, since I am young and absorbed with my own life. I also have a cluttered mind filled with many undeveloped/developing thoughts. Consistently blogging would help to solve this problem by forcing me to take time to get an idea of what’s going on in the world around me and synthesize some of that into my own opinion. It’s too easy to just have knowledge and not form an opinion on it. Blogging would force me to think quickly and develop the ideas in my head into coherent, complete thoughts.

With that, I will make a commitment: for the time being, I shall write one complete blog post every week. Do you have any ideas regarding what I should write about?

Advertisement