Blogging isn’t easy. You have to come up with a topic, write about it, and then release it for the world to see. That’s three kinds of pressure. Now most of us don’t have hundreds or thousands of readers, but the pressure is still there, and it can lead to the trap of not writing. Not writing because you don’t have any ideas, not writing because someone has already written about it, not writing because you don’t have time or energy to write it perfectly, maybe even not writing because no one reads the posts or comments on them. Here’s my Zen advice: write more. Write about things that interest you, that you learn about, that you care about. Posts don’t need to be an arbitrary length. Post a sentence, a paragraph, or more – whatever you feel like writing. Blogging is about writing. Just write.
Does writing more make you a better writer? Yes and no. Like most things in life if you do it enough you get past syntax, past the fear of saying “it’s done, you can look at it”. Writing more, especially quickly, isn’t going to magically improve your spelling and grammar. Work on it,or not, as you prefer. Writing more will make you better at taking thoughts from your head and getting them into a shareable format. That has value far beyond blogging. It will change how and when you communicate, especially via email.
How long does it take before it gets easier? It’s not 5 posts, it’s probably not 50. At 50 you’re making progress and somewhere between there and 500 you feel like you can at least write about a topic when needed and you’re a lot – a lot! – better at finding topics.
Want to take a break from writing? Absolutely! Just put a post up that says you’re on break. To me that looks so much better than a blog that is active, then abandoned. Which do you think looks better then the next client/employer happens across it?
I’ve written this in about 5 minutes and it probably shows. I’ve got an hours worth of thoughts on this, but I don’t know when I’ll find that hour, so I’d rather put this out now and maybe, just maybe, spur someone to start, or resume, writing.
