About the Blog

I don't often think about my blog as a living entity. I usually think of it as a self-imposed requirement. But recently I've been thinking of it in a bigger sense.

For one thing, why do I do it? It started as a semi-assignment. In my last semester of college, my writing professor told me in a meeting to start a blog. I should write about writing and I should do it every day. It was pretty vague, but I started it out and got a feel for it over time. But school ended in May. Why do I keep doing it? The simple answer is that I like everything that this blog does for me.

So what does this blog do for me? The first thing it does is make me write. My writing teacher, the same one who gave me this assignment, would tell his students something that stuck with me: "You're only a writer on days that you write." Well, if I write an entry every day, then I'm a writer every day. But there's more to it than simply giving myself a title. It also gets me warmed up. These blog entries are great warm-ups for me. They get my wheels spinning and my fingers moving. When I finish a blog entry, I'm in writing mode. But it is not just that I'm writing; it's what I'm writing about that also matters.

This blog makes me think about my craft. It makes me think of every aspect of my craft. I have to think about forms, genres, styles, characters, techniques, and life itself. Writing these posts forces me to think certain ideas through, or at least think about them enough to put them into words. And for me, putting something into words adds a great power to them. Whenever I get asked a question about writing or being a writer, I always have something to say that I've written an entry about. I've realized a great number of things from thinking about writing every single day and it has made me a stronger writer for it.

I don't know how long this blog will last. I have no intentions of ending it, but I wonder if I'll ever run out of ideas. I remember in the early days of the blog, I would occasionally get an idea for a post and then realize I already wrote about it. Now it's hard to keep track of them all. I am happy to have a search function to go through all my posts. Even still, I occasionally repeat myself. Sometimes I have a post that is an extension of a previous one. Other times it's more of me saying the same thing with different words.

Ultimately, I hope to keep this blog up as long as I am a writer. I hope it will continue to make me a better writer and keep me thoughtful about my craft. If you think you're missing those things, try it yourself. You don't even need to put it online. Just try to write one thing about writing every day.