When I started this blog last year I thought that blogging about writing will help me understand my writing process better, and improve it. But the more posts I write the more I feel that blogging, even when about writing topics, can be a distraction.
Talking about writing – which is what most writers’ blogs are all about – doesn’t make you a better story teller. It helps you better understand the craft, and it encourages you to write often and as best as you can because you know others read, and this improves you as a writer. But it doesn’t help you write better stories.
It seems to me that few of those who are good at talking about writing are great writers themselves. Great artists don’t really know how they make art. They just close their eyes and do it.
Benefits of maintaining a blog
- Helps you make writing a (daily) habit, and that improves you as a writer.
- Connects you with interesting people and helps you attract readers for you stories, sometimes establishing online friendships.
- Makes it easier for you to understand your thoughts and emotions by writing about them.
Disadvantages of maintaining a blog
- Eats up your time, that is if you want to keep up a lively blog, follow others, and reply to the comments you receive.
- Encourages you to talk about your story rather than to write it.
- Exposes you to (too) many mainstream ideas which you would probably be better off not knowing.
Blogging is one art, story writing is another. They don’t really rub elbows, these two fellows, because the first lives in the street, and the second in the attic.
That’s why today I’ve republished this old entry and devoted to Oliver Colors’ biography the 30-45 minutes that I would have normally spent writing a new post.
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Filed under: Writing Tagged: Blog, Books, Writing
