Category Archives: writing

blog, meeting, writing

Interesting Experience

Leave a comment

This evening I was the guest speaker at the League of Voters meeting. I believe that this group used to be called the League of Women Voters, but like many organizations has begun to refer to itself as the League in a sex neutral way. That is undoubtedly a good thing for this group as the crowd was more than 50% male in composition.

The evening was in an informal Q&A format. I had asked the other city council members to attend, but none of them did. Pretty much typical – it is hard to get the council members out to an occasion where they might have to speak. I seem to be the only member that actual enjoys public speaking from time to time. Anyhow, the evening started at 6:30 and the next time I consulted my watch it was 8:30. Seemed like no time at all because I was enjoying having an interested and involved audience who asked intelligent questions. I only wish I ran into such crowds on a more regulatr basis.

The interesting event didn’t happen until the meeting was over and I was chatting with the chairperson before heading off into the roaring wind and stormy weather. (Yes, we may indeed be on track for yet another spring blizzard tomorrow.) The chairperson made the offhand remark that he was so happy I was blogging and that he really enjoyed reading the blog. It took me aback for a second or two because I don’t know the chairperson well. But he evidently enjoys the writings herein. I told him thanks and gently made sure he knew that this blog is a personal effort and not any official organ of the office. He said he understood. Coupled with running into one of my Very Important Teachers from this post at the post office today, it made for a strange day. Meeting two people in the flesh who like my writing, one of whom keeps trying to convince me to write a full length science fiction novel rather than my occasional forays into the sci-fi short story, in the same day, could cause me to get a big head! (Alright, an even bigger head. {*grin*})

The question that has been rolling around on the tip of my mind for the last couple of hours: Have you ever met an unknown blog reader in real life? Have they commented to you about your writing? How was the experience? I ask because after I got over the initial shock of a local, non-family member, non-political friend or foe, reading this blog, I rather enjoyed the experience.

(I am scheduled to plant a tree in one of the parks tomorrow for Arbor Day. It will be interesting to see if the ceremony gets blown and snowed out. One of the predictions from global warming is drier winters and more violent spring weather here on the plains. So far it fits in perfectly.)

(Do you think I abused the poor comma too much in this post? I’m to lazy to go back and re-write it, so abusive or not, they stay. {*grin/2*})

blog, mechanics, writing

Why I Blog

9 Comments

It seems that there are at least as many reasons for blogging as there are bloggers. So why did I choose to start blogging? And why do I continue blogging? It obviously isn’t for fame or fortune.

I started blogging for a very mundane and prosaic reason – I needed to regain my writing skills. In order to understand what I mean, some background is in order. I am the author of more than 150 published articles, papers, nomographs, and a weekly newspaper column. Note that I say am, but that writing was mostly more than 10 years ago. In the past, writing was a natural and easy process for me. I could sit down and my thoughts would flow onto the screen or paper without a thought of the mechanics of the process. When I started to write again recently, I was rusty and it was like pulling teeth to get anything out of my head. What should have been a ten minute task became a two day ordeal. The joy of writing was lost to the struggles within.

I am not what I call a passionate writer. I don’t feel that I have something eating its way out of my brain that *has* to be published and read. I am not even sure what I want to write about until I sit down and do it. All I know is that I want the mechanics of writing to get out of the way so I can engage my mind in the joy of creation and expression.

Like any skill, writing depends on practice and hard work. As my friend the writer says, you have to work at it every day. I know he puts in the requisite hours every day. At the Super Bowl party, he and I had a chance to chat a bit about it. He reads this blog and sometimes comments to me about it. (Yet another of the people who comment in real life and not here.) He also said he had thought from time to time about blogging, but that after the long hours of writing he did each day, he feared he would have a difficult time writing still more for a blog; it would become just another task. (He had a point. If I ever feel that this is a task rather than a joy, it will cease.) The issue here is that practice really does make perfect (or at least ease).

Back in October/November, I made an agreement with myself to write something every day. I promised myself that I would publish daily, no matter what the state of that day’s writing. I also told myself that I would prepare and write any day’s assignment on that day, preferably within 45 minutes of posting it. That way it could not become a long agonizing process. I also made the explicit decision to only give my writing a quick once over in lieu of real proof reading. I wanted to be able to write again, not edit. I have generally followed that plan. You, my dear readers, have had to suffer the occasional misspelling and typo, even the rare sentence fragment. For that, I apologize.

The point of this whole meandering mess? The process is working. It has become easier for me to pick a topic and just write about it. Some of my normal wit (and sarcasm) has started to peek through as the mechanics have moved aside. It has improved enough that some readers have noticed. Even L has noted that my writing is getting much better. And that makes me happy. But what makes me the happiest is that it is becoming a transparent process, free and flowing. Now all I have to do is work on my tendency to wordiness and …

So why do you blog?  Are you on a mission? Are you honing a skill? Do you have something eating its way out of your brain? Are you a Martian?