Metablogging

    On being an escribitionist

    In November, when I realized there was no way I was going to be able to get 50,000 words of writing done, I decided to try writing 750 words a day using the website 750words.com. I enjoyed doing morning pages this way. The traditional writing-in-a-notebook way tends to give me hand or wrist pain. But I was using the new site, and after a streak hiccup, I realized that it wasnโ€™t quite the write tool for me. I actually do better without streak tracking, because if I mess up (and I didnโ€™t, their system didnโ€™t save my 750 words even though Iโ€™d written them), my perfectionism has me go NEVER MIND!

    So I decided to use a combo of my Google Calendar to send me an email reminder like 750 words does and Scrivener to set up a journal where each entry had a 750 word target. That went well, for a while, until I hit a day when I just didnโ€™t feel like it. And I gave myself permission not to. And that was fine, too.

    I got back into it but overtime it just felt likeโ€ฆ not quite what I was looking for. I would write things in there, and then I would think I had said those things to someone, but I hadnโ€™t. And I realized that private journaling is great and valuable, but if Iโ€™m looking to be motivated to keep up a regular practice, I want an audience. (Can you tell Iโ€™m an obliger?)

    Iโ€™m not a journaler. Iโ€™m not a diarist. I am an escribitionist. I have been for over 20 years. So if I want to keep up a writing process, blogging is the best way to do it.

    I also really appreciate blogging as a mode of thinking, as a way of finding out what I think. When I write for no audience, words come out, but they donโ€™t have sticking power in my mind. I do best when my ideas are things I can talk out with another person, even if that other person is a silent reader. I love having my blog as a tool I can refer to when I need help, a place where advice from my past self bubbles up for me.

    So hi. Iโ€™m trying out daily blogging, again. Iโ€™m not setting a word target. Iโ€™m not going to stress if I miss a day. But this is my plan, to get something a little more deliberate than a quick note written every day.

    ๐Ÿ”–๐Ÿ’ป Read You’re Not Blogging, My Friend. (Tom Critchlow).

    ๐Ÿ”–๐Ÿ’ป Read Incrementally correct personal websites (Brian Lovin).

    ๐Ÿ”–๐Ÿ’ป Read envisioning my homepage as an online therapeutic space (Winnie Lim).

    ๐Ÿ”–๐Ÿ’ป Read revisiting architectural blogging (Alan Jacobs).

    ๐Ÿ”–๐Ÿ’ป Read Building a Digital Homestead, Bit by Brick (Tom Critchlow).

    I like this homesteading metaphor. Neither gardens nor streams quite work for what I do with my personal site. This is closer.

    ๐Ÿ”–๐Ÿ’ป Read Why blog? (Chuck Grimmett).

    Well said. These are my reasons, too.