Biking and Blogging and Whatnot

Daily writing prompt

Why do you blog?

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I blog because I don’t paint or knit or talk to all that many people. I don’t act or sing or bicycle great distances. I own a piano but don’t play it, skis that’ve not seen snow in years. I gave up all the little jeweled boxes of failure and self-doubt a long time ago.

I blog because it’s a creative and disciplined thing that I do fairly well.

Blogging is about telling a story – a little story, a big story, a painful story, a meaningless story, and doing so without any externally imposed filter. I don’t write a piece, send it off to a journal or whatnot, and wait for someone whom I’ve never met to tell me the story is good enough for people to read. I make my own decision about that.

In this way, blogging is about writing without worry. It’s writing for its own sake. Not seeking others’ approval, not waiting to hear the dreaded words, “this is a nice piece, but not quite right for us,” is very freeing as a writer.

I have writing friends who want to reassure me that I’m a good writer. I think they do this because they’re assuming I feel inferior ‘just being a blogger.’ But I don’t. I know the instant I write something if it is pedestrian (but still worthwhile) or exceptional. I don’t write exceptional things every day, but I do often enough to keep my ego quite plump and fit.

Blogging also means that I don’t stew over what I’m writing. A lot of things give me angst but not my writing. If I like the words I see on the page, I press Publish. If I don’t, I ditch them. That simple. When I write what is honest and true, I feel like I do when I’ve scrubbed all the pots in the kitchen after a big messy meal. Everything’s set right, put away, counters wiped down. The dish towel hung in its place. Finished.

It helps that I don’t need to be famous. I just need to be whole.

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Photo credit: Tyra Baumler