In my last post, I explained that a speaker I heard at my local California Writer’s Club branch mentioned a variety or reasons why writers get “blocked.” And I said blogging offered a solution to the overwhelm that can cause some writers to feel unable to write. Why? Because blog posts are short and written quickly.
I also promised that today I would tell you another reason why blogging offers a remedy to writer’s block. So, here it is: Often writers feel “blocked” because they are afraid of going going public with their work. The thought of actually writing for publication, showing their work to others or having their loved ones (about whom they may have written) read what they have written causes them so much trepidation they simply can’t put words down on paper. Their mind goes blank out of fear.
So, why would blogging, which is an extremely public writing activity, provide a solution to this cause of writer’s block? Simple. It allows you to test out the public writing waters a little at a time.
When you first begin blogging, no one actually reads what you post. You are still posting in isolation. However, there is the chance that someone might come along and read your blog. If you continue to blog long enough–and if you tell anyone about your blog, eventually someone will come along and read what you publish. (Uh, oh! Scary!) At first, however, it will probably be just one reader. You won’t even know who it is. A day or two later…maybe even a week later…you might have two or three readers, and your readership will grow from there just a little bit at a time. This allows you to get accustomed to writing for publication–to being a public writer. In other words, you don’t have to jump into it with a huge splash but rather you can just dip your toe in and see what the water feels like and what affect the ripples create.
At any time you can back off a little. In most cases, blog readers go away or decrease in number when you don’t post, or publish, anything for a while. However, if you make writing just a little–say 200 or 300 words even two or three times a week–your goal–and actually posting it to your blog (which means actually publishing it), before you know it you’ll be writing more than that on a regular basis. Your fear of going public will be gone, and your writer’s block will be cured!
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