The thing I'm struggling with the most right now is the fact that this is time consuming. To really develop a quality idea and put out quality writing, it takes more than just spilling some words from your brain and leaving them online for someone to glance over later.
For my personal blog, I made a goal to post about three times a week. It turns out, I end up spending anywhere from 0.5 to 1.5 hours on a quality post, and that's kind of a commitment. When I'm done staring at textbooks and worksheets for the day or typing insurance policies in a stuffy office, I want to be outside of my house. I want to go talk to real people face to face. I want to have meaningful relationships and participate in real activities like painting or even going for walks.
"Heidi, you can take your computer outside." Technically that is true. Not my point.
Do I really need to bounce ideas off the universe? One of my best creative periods was the year after I graduated high school and worked before heading to college. I only worked 27 hours a week and spent the rest of my time biking everywhere, writing, and reading my writing to my best friend. We would sit in her basement for hours and talk about everything and then I would read her my writing. When she laughed, I knew I had written something good. When she made "ugh" noises, I knew I needed to change something. During that time period I also tried sharing my writing online in a couple different ways and the feedback I got was nothing compared to those little "ugh" noises from my best friend.
Biking to the library is a great way to find information outside of Google. It also helps keep your muscles from atrophying.
Obviously, you shouldn't modify your writing to fit what one person likes or dislikes, but immediate feedback from a real person can be very powerful. I also took a creative writing class that felt similar. Even though we shared our writing online, we met three times a week in person to discuss things and evaluate each other's work.
Is this bad to want to connect only with people nearby, or is it better? I think it depends on the person. When I was in middle school, I felt like the only people who understood me were online. I could have found some specific people to workshop with. Dr. Burton has showed us that it is possible to collaborate online and make real things that are good. If not done well, though, I feel that often leaving work online for someone to find can be unproductive and not yield good feedback.
I wanted to add, though, that I really like the idea that blogging is a more effective way of sharing literary ideas and research papers rather than traditional methods. I don't know how that works into the rest of this post. I keep changing it. Every time I read it through it doesn't sound right. I'm going to chalk it up at this point to an "unfinished idea" that I want to share anyway.
I wanted to add, though, that I really like the idea that blogging is a more effective way of sharing literary ideas and research papers rather than traditional methods. I don't know how that works into the rest of this post. I keep changing it. Every time I read it through it doesn't sound right. I'm going to chalk it up at this point to an "unfinished idea" that I want to share anyway.
Although you think it's unfinished, I think it makes sense! You can't blog unless you have something to blog about and nobody's going to want to read something they read/hear about every day. There is more to blogging and writing than articles we find online or books, And it's good to know you put so much thought into your posts-I find that I spend at least an hour on mine, too.
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