I just read an article called The Goody-Two-Shoes Nature and it really hit home with me. I graduated from Oakland University with a degree in Journalism because I wanted to be a sports writer, I ate, slept, and breathed sports. Matter of fact, I still do. But the only flaw in my plan was the fact that I'm not really a strong writer. I tend to write with a passive voice too often and I make too many grammatical errors. I ran a sports blog (enter shameless plug), called Steve On Sports. For a while I was able to post a couple of articles a week because I was laid off, but once I started working again my blog got put on the back burner. Trying to balance a 40-60 hour work week, a girlfriend, friends, and activities got to be too much and there just wasn't time for writing. I got too caught up when people would nitpick my blog for grammatical errors, I was using my blog to express my astute sports knowledge onto friends and family. My intentions were never aimed at using it to land a job, I was just writing carefree blogs about whatever I felt like.
After reading this article, it kind of ignited the flame that I had for maintaining my blog. I want to write again because I felt like most people who read my blog enjoyed it, which is why I did it in the first place. I wanted people to read it and enjoy it and maybe take away something they didn't know before they read it, I didn't care about those who criticized me. I'd like to get back to writing in my sports blog again sometime soon with some consistency too but I'll have to figure out how to juggle my schedule first. I'm taking 14 credit hours, I have a field placement to deal with, I'm working anywhere from 25-35 hours a week depending on business, and of course there's a social life to balance as well.
Anyway, here's to a renewed and fresh start in 2014!
Thanks for sharing the link; looks to me like you had a good thing going. Hopefully, you can return to it at some point since you enjoy doing it. Writing because are passionate or at least interested in something always helps the process along; I have a harder time writing about topics I have little interest in.
ReplyDeleteMastering active and passive voice is doable, so let me know if you want some exercises.
Try to strengthen your connections between your own experiences and the Goody article. You have a lot going on in your life (like most people), so what do you think articles' suggestion about a writing routine? Did you find that once you started the blog, the sense of duty to post took away the enjoyment or enhanced it?