Lessons from the blog
by Christine Kling
It is 1:00 a.m. in the wee hours of a Friday night, and I am sitting on top of the covers of the bed in a motel room in a suburb of Chicago trying to come up with something to write for my blog this week. My sister and the Yorkshire Terror are sound asleep in the bed next to me, both of them snoring, but I am sitting here after a very long day struggling to come up with a subject to write about. Right now, I would really love to just lie back against the covers and fall sound asleep like the rest of the crew in this room. I’ve had a couple of glasses of wine and I am so sleepy. But I have a blog to write and it’s something I have to do.
I’ve come to Chicago for a family reunion which has nothing to do with either writing or sailing, the two subjects we write about here on this blog, but as I sit here thinking, it occurs to me that blogging is exactly the thing I want to write about tonight.
I’ve been here many times before. No, I don’t mean this hotel room or this city. I mean I have found myself in this circumstance when everyone else is sound asleep, and I am sitting up pouring my heart onto the page and wondering if my words are connecting with anyone out there in cyberspace. There are those who say that in this age of Twitter and many other social networks that are starting up every day that blogging is so over done and nobody reads blogs anymore.
I joined Mike in writing posts for this blog back in the beginning when he started Write on the Water. My first post appeared here in March of 2010. That is a long time to be blogging weekly, and I’m pleased to say I have made every week since then with only a very few exceptions.
Most writers get involved with blogs with the idea that it will get their name out there and their primary purpose is name recognition. They want to use the blog for self-promotion. And I was thinking along those lines, too, back in 2010 when I began contributing to this blog.
But oddly enough, it hasn’t turned out that way. Most of the time what I blog about has nothing to do with the books I am writing and I forget to put book links at the end of the blog. But having to blog once a week has strengthened my writing muscles. Writing is absolutely a skill at which one gets better with practice.
Not only that, blogging has helped me to clarify my thinking as I have gone through this process of changing into a self-publishing writer. Sometimes we just don’t know what we think until we are forced to write it down. The action of putting thoughts into words has helped me to steer my path through this ever-changing world of publishing.
The strange thing is — I enjoy blogging. It’s one of those things that hurts so much it feels good, if you know what I mean. It’s like jogging or eating cauliflower. I think that having to come up with new topics and words every week has helped to make me a better writer. I am more disciplined (although admittedly I still have a ways to go on this) and I have learned how to stretch as a writer.
This idea of stretching doesn’t mean stretching out your words and trying to add filler. By stretching, I mean reaching beyond that first facile idea. Digging deeper to find new ways of looking at a topic. It means reaching within myself to find my voice and walking all around a topic to make sure I am looking at it from all sides. And finally, it is learning to write from the gut and not being afraid to expose one’s own under-belly or short comings.
So, when Mike announced on the blog on Monday that he was taking the rest of the summer off, it got me to thinking. Because I have learned so much from these years of blogging, I have decided to start blogging twice a week to help add more fresh content and to further sharpen my writing skills.
I have always dreamed of writing a memoir about my 30+ years of sailing, and I know from my time spent polishing some of my yarns about my early years on the water that I have more than a few funny stories to tell. I’ve asked to pick up a second day just to write more of these memoir pieces. I’ll keep doing the same thing on Fridays, but I’ll start adding in some old sailing stories on some of our free weekdays as well.
What do you think about blogging? Is it dead? Am I crazy to decide to try for more blogging? Am I going to burn out? Let me know what you think.
Fair winds!
Christine
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