I was reading a post by Jonathan Fields (blog | twitter) about making bad guitars. Okay, so what does that have to do with blogging? Nothing, and everything. Let me explain.
Fields was interviewing Bob Taylor, who had founded Taylor Guitars. Now Jonathan has wanted to make his own guitar now for a while. He had looked into the various ways to get some experience, whether from a kit, a 2 week workshop, all the way to apprenticeship. Since he was talking to a guy who made guitars, he asked Taylor what he should do. Taylor's response was classic, "Go and make a really bad guitar." Now why would he tell anyone to make a bad guitar?
Simply because it's a start. And it's also a tremendous learning experience. By actually making the guitar, though it may be a bad one, you'll gain practical experience. And then when you have time for more formal training, it'll make more sense because you'll have a start as to why some things are done and why others aren't. When it comes to blogging, the same thing is true. Writing blog posts, ones with content, takes time and energy. It takes work. For those of us who blog at least semi-regularly, that work is fun. We enjoy it. Or at least, we should. I know I do. I like writing and blogging gives that an outlet. As I blog more, I learn more about how to do things. I learn what works and what doesn't. For instance, I learned that trying to use the default interface SQLServerCentral.com provides through a Safari web browser on an iPhone just isn't a good idea. You don't get paragraphs. You get one blob of a post. I won't do that again! Now I might write it all down and put it in draft, but I won't let it go public until I have a chance to tidy things up.
Get your feet wet, then start doing some more research on how to blog better. Determine if blogging is something you'll enjoy or not. If it is, then look to get better at it. If not, then you tried it, it wasn't for you, time to try something else, right? But certainly start building experience. Don't let your lack of experience deter you. Sure, you may come back to your posts after you have been blogging for a while and say to yourself, "I wrote that? Really? That's bad." And that's okay, because that shows you've grown as a blogger. It's like any good developer, upon reviewing his or her old code, usually comes away with a feeling that the code previously written was a lot worse than what he or she can do today. Again, that's growth. And the only way to get growth is to get started. So what are you waiting on?
