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| Chris McGinty of AccordingToWhim.com |
I have five folders: 1. Already
posted, 2. Ready to post, 3. Something else needs to be posted first, 4. Needs
editing, and 5. Incomplete. I supposed that folder #2 should be empty at all
times, and I should just have them scheduled to post.
When Nathan and I ran this blog
as a daily blog back in 2011, we traded days. It was an every other day blog
for each of us, but a daily blog for the two of us. With the length of blogs
that I sometimes write, the every other day schedule was still difficult to
keep up with. I’m trying to write shorter blog posts now, even if it requires
breaking things into smaller thoughts and providing links.
This may seem like a departure
from what I was just talking about, but stick with me. Three or four weeks ago,
I did a random word search for two words to let my subconscious think about
while I slept. A lot of times, I will forget about the words the next day, and
who knows if they ever give me any insights subconsciously. These two words
stuck with me for some reason, and I spent the next few weeks occasionally
coming back to them.
While I was at work last night, I
was washing dishes and listening to a video on YouTube related to my searches using
these two words. Suddenly, I knew what the fictional short story was that I
wanted to write. On my next delivery, I took notes using the audio recorder on
my phone, and went about my night. Within the hour, I had a completely
different short story idea, based loosely on the first concept.
What does this have to do with
daily blogging?
It’s more about the act of daily
writing. There is something that happens when you spend time each day playing
around with the creative part of your brain. You tend to move forward in
different ways when you write things down than you do if you just think about
them.
Even before the wonders of mp3
recorders, and built in audio recorders on my phone, I had a tape recorder in
my car to record my thoughts. If I ever feel like I have writer’s block, which
I agree with Seth Godin that writer’s block doesn’t really exist, I can just
grab a voice recording or a tape and start transcribing or paraphrasing until I
have something to write about. My blog post about memory was the result of me
getting on to record a different thought, and I started on an aside. One night,
I needed to get moving on the writing front, so I listened to that recording.
Between that blog post and two other blog posts (not yet posted) that I wrote
that night based on thoughts from that recording, I think it was worth the time
to record my thoughts. I also think that it was worth my time to continue
playing around with the thoughts those two random words gave me, because it’s
not just the two short story ideas. It’s everything else that surrounded the
creative process during that time, and it’s everything that I will learn from
writing those stories.
I used to just journal when I was
feeling less creative, because it was better to start writing and hope that something
would form than to just give up for the night. The blog serves two purposes
along those lines. I have something to write when I just want to journal. I
have a reason to sit down to write. Even if I don’t have a daily blog, I have a
daily writing habit. Sometimes it’s just notes, and sometimes it resembles
speaking into a recorder more than it resembles writing, but it keeps my brain
creative.
Probably 90% of everything I
write isn’t worth reading, but sometimes the good stuff has happened after
hours of writing crap. My brain suddenly changes tracks, and there’s something
on the screen before me that makes me happy that I took the time to play
creatively. Even if this isn’t an argument for a daily blog, it’s at least an
argument for daily writing.
Chris McGinty is a blogger who
likes the idea of scheduling everything that he writes. It means he can die and
his blog will continue to release his thoughts. Tupac Shakur should have had a
blog. It’d probably still be posting scheduled material.
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