blogging, journaling and sharing my thoughts
/I am not a good blogger. Wait, that's not true. Posting to Project Life and Photo of the Day are easy for me. I am a visual thinker and visual communication is what I enjoy. But my Blog has been neglected. It is not that I don't have anything to say. I do have lots of thoughts and opinions. I just can't seem to get them written down. Or typed up.
I have these thoughts and stories stuck inside me distracting me. I try to get them down on "paper" and out of the swirling vortex that is my brain. Not that writing will purge the thoughts. But writing helps organize them. Instead of bits & pieces I can have cohesive ideas in a string, in paragraphs.
I thought the blogging platform was ideal for me because I could just post bits and pieces and not worry about the big picture. But I would like these bits & pieces to make sense. At least to me. I start posts in a text editor so I can go back and refine my thoughts, add necessary links and improve the writing. But once the initial reaction is written down (typed up), it leaves my swirling mass of thoughts and I forget about it. I do not have any method of going back and completing the task. Writing is not on my to do list.
And I am not sure why I don't think to add writing or blogging to my task list. Oh right, I don't want it to feel like a chore. Writing is not natural for me. Once we passed grammar and started working on essays, I hated English class. Getting coherent thoughts out of my head and down on paper is a chore for me. I prefer to make visual art. If I put "writing" on my to do list, I will do everything to avoid it. And it will make me feel bad every time I see it.
Still, I want to improve my writing and the best way to do that is to write. I know not everything needs to be posted or shared publicly. In the past, I have used the blog as a venting platform. This got me in trouble from family members. But there are some stories or thoughts I would like to share. And having some time between the initial thoughts and the final draft gives some good perspective.
I read recently that handwriting is better than typing for brain development and memory retention. Writing by hand slows down the brain process and makes you think more. A while ago, I started writing blog posts and saving them as drafts to go over them at another time. The problem is that I never went back. They remain forever as drafts and never posted. Now I am trying another process. I am writing down my thoughts in a journal with handwriting. Then I have to rethink the post as I type it in. So it will get a least one revision. Hopefully, I can make it a habit to review a second or third time and then actually post something.
My current workflow is:
•Note ideas in Drafts.
•Sit down (almost) everyday and do some handwritten journaling. The evenings seem to be the best time for this.
•Look through my journal and spend some time typing an entry into a text editor. (I am currently using iA Writer.) Or looking for an a file that needs some editing.
•Revise in text editor.
•If the article is ready to post, copy and paste to my blog and collect and add any links, if necessary.
My current goal is to post one new article each week to my blog.