Thursday, September 25, 2014

Blog Reboot


I used to write friends more emails.  I approached them wrong.  Social media has since replaced email and even texting as my preferred mode of communication, but I'm wondering if part of the issue with the infrequency of my blog writing of late is similar to where I went wrong with email. 

For the longest time, I wrote almost daily email exchanges with friends.  We'd ask and answer each other's questions as the day went by and the thread would grow until one or the other of us would start a new email chain.  What we did wrong was...we let the emails get bigger and bigger, answering more questions and telling more and more stories.  That sounds great, and it was, except...answering emails started turning into something I would dread.  I'd look at this giant email and think, "Okay, it's going to take me at least an hour to answer this."  I'd tell my story, ask my questions, and hit send.  When I got the next email back, it would be even longer.  Eventually I started doing the ol'..."I'll address it tomorrow" thing, and then I'd repeat that until guilt spurred me to make tomorrow today and write more. 

So I think that's what's been going on to an extent with the blog.  I have things to write, but it just seems like so much that I don't even want to start because it'll take forever to get to the end.

So I'm going to attempt to write more frequently, but just keep the length more reasonable.  If I can.  I'm...verbose.


Emma has signed up for a writing class with her English teacher for Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month).  I told her that maybe I'd do the same thing for...Nanoblowmo...or whatever the fuck they call the blog writing month challenge thingy.  I didn't call it Nanoblowmo to Emma.  Nor did I drop the f-bomb on her.

Anyway, on that topic (writing, not f-bombs)...Emma read something out loud for Leslie and I that she wrote.  It was really good.  It was such a departure from the stuff she's written in the past.  So much more of it was "her voice".  So much less of it was...Topic Sentence/5 Supporting Sentences/Closing Sentence...that drives me batshit crazy.  And she was clearly proud of it, which was great.  Typically we don't get to see her work unless we force her to let us review/correct it.  And maybe that's why...too much criticism.  I don't know.

I made sure to heap praise on her because I'd love for her to take an interest in writing.  The kid is funny as hell, bright, and tells a good story (when she collects her thoughts first)...why wouldn't that translate to good writing?

Nablopomo.  I just looked it up.  National Blog Posting Month.  So I'll maybe do that.

So much for keeping it short so that I post more frequently.   I have a post appearing on Glade Run's website in the next week or so, and I'll link here and let you know when it posts.

7 comments:

  1. Praise heaping is good. There needs to be more of that in the world.

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  2. I went in the other direction and signed up for NaNoWriteNoMo'.

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  3. A blogger I follow hosts a 31 Days of ________ where you write in the SAME topic for 31 Days. I've done it in the past and the best I can come up with for right now is 31 Days of Doodling.

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  4. It is too much pressure :) If I blogged every day it would start to sound like a journal entry. "I had eggs for breakfast and went to the library. Threw in a load of laundry and then sat down to blog." Oddly enough, if someone else writes like this every day I find it compelling. "oooh I could have had eggs for breakfast. Maybe I should put in a load of laundry? I wonder if there is anything new that's good at the library! Happy Day!"

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  5. Yay! Writing more frequently is good!

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  6. Even just a few lines or a poem or a picture keeps me in contact with my readers who number in the tens, don't get too excited here. I like to post a few times a week and often it is the last thing I do before going to bed. I like to leave the day on that good note. Unless I have to post about bad shit like a suicide...

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