Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Blog and Be Fruitful

Few years ago, I didn’t know a blog from a – well, I just didn’t know what it meant. My spouse the computer expert had to explain it to me.

That was all I needed. I signed up on a site and started four blogs. If I wrote enough I could make money, and I did – a little – but that was, as they say, “mad money”. I really just did it to keep the juices flowing and get the blood circulating. I could do some of the entries to rant and complain, because if there is ever a widespread human concern we all share, it is the belief that nobody is listening. Other blogs allowed me to be creative, write fiction, write non-fiction or a little bit of both.

The politics of this particular site forced me to give it up after about six months, but it was time. I had a slew of blogs in files marked ‘journal’, ‘romance’ and ‘sports-related’. I had crude material that I could now work with, mix up, improve upon and eventually send out. It also gave me endless ideas just re-reading what I had written from day to day.

I recommend blogging to anyone. A friend of mine who never did it until recently is now heavily into her Buying a House blog and sends it to all of us so we can share in her agony (I suggested she leave me off the list when she starts her Looking for a Job blog). While she isn’t a writer, she is feeling the need to rant and to share, and this is helping her through a very painful process. She’s also inspired me; chances are, when I next write about a couple searching for a home, she might notice some of her own past experiences snuggled up against some of my own.

It’s the public domain, right? I rant and blog regularly on my own web site now. It feels good, makes me write every day, and always leads to other ideas.

You could write under a pseudonym and not tell anybody about it, but if you do find the best site for yourself and decide to blog and let others know, you must let yourself go. Don’t spill your guts completely, but don’t self censor to the point of boredom.

There is something very comforting in knowing that others will read your sputtering, that you aren’t just yelling at four walls and having it bounce back at you. Get it out there, and you might end up with a gorgeous gem of an idea that you would not have considered by just staring at the blank page of a Word document.

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