Both Sides Of Blogging

I’ve been blogging three times a week for about six months now. I’ve only missed one post (the Thursday before I went to RWA), but then I made up for it the next week. So, of course, now that I’m an expert and all I thought I would post a list of some of the good things and some of the bad things I’ve discovered about blogging.

Good Things

1. You can write about anything you want to write about.
2. Writing a blog keeps the writing juices flowing.
3. It gives you practice in being disciplined and meeting a deadline.
4. Your posts go out to the whole internet and can touch people you don’t even know.
5. You can be honest and open.

Bad Things

1. You can write about anything, but you have to think of things to write about. Interesting things. Charming things. Things that will have people wanting to come back to your writing again and again. Even if you don’t feel interesting or charming.
2. It may keep the writing juices flowing, but it also siphons off valuable writing time. Imagination you could be using for your fiction gets put to the blog because you have a shorter deadline.
3. Meeting a deadline sucks if all you have are tumbleweeds blowing across the empty desert of your mind.
4. Your posts go out to the whole internet and they never go away. So if you’re stupid it can haunt you for the rest of your life and even beyond the grave. No pressure there.
5. If you’re too honest and open, the next thing you know people are peeking in the venetian blinds at you and you can’t walk down the hall at work without…oh, wait. That’s just me.

And the verdict?

Despite the pitfalls, I have to say that I like blogging. I really do. I like chattering on to no one in particular. I like posting pictures of my cats. I like it when people comment, thereby validating me as a writer and a human being. So I’m going to keep on keeping on.

And, you know, I’ve looked at blogs from both sides now, from up and down, and still somehow, it’s blogs illusions I recall… Wait! Do I really know blogs at all?

Hmmmm.