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| Painting by Fitzy |
Rachel Held Evans and John Piper are Ninja bloggers. Pretty much every post is well and carefully written, and appears to have gone through multiple drafts.
I sometimes wonder if I should blog that way–producing the best writing I am capable of in every post, even if I have far fewer of them.
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I produced carefully written, much revised and rewritten work for years. And also developed writers’ block–was so self-critical that writing became anxiety, self-doubt and work rather than play for me. It lost its joy.
For me to try to blog that way would be the sure way to stress and writer’s block.
For me blogging is a way to psychological, spiritual and emotional health, as I keep current with what I am working out intellectually or spiritually or emotionally. It is deep play.
So, I have made peace with being good-enough rather than consistently excellent in my writing on this blog (as in all other areas of my life).
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One of the most empowering writing teachers I had, Charlie Sugnet at the University of Minnesota, would give us really low-bar, low risk of failure assignments. I did the best writing of my life that term. (See this or this published in my first book, Wandering Between Two Worlds).
Setting a low bar—being willing to open myself to the possibility of small failures on a daily basis–that is the only way I can see myself maintaining this enterprise of sharing my innermost thoughts with the world on an almost-daily basis without burning out.
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What I am far more interested in could be called, I suppose, stream-of-Spirit blogging.
To hear what the Spirit is saying to me. To record it.
When I don’t know what to write about, which is often, I either look at my drafts folder for the overflow of those creative days when I have ideas for five posts, or I ask, “What is the spirit saying to me? What worry, joy, emotion, idea, insight or epiphany is uppermost in my thoughts?” And then I play with it. And as I do, the germ of the idea frequently develops into a fully-fledged 800 word blog post.
My blog will consist of other posts, of course, but this will be one way for me to maintain my own interest in it. To try to hear what the Spirit is saying to me, and to record it. (God’s ideas are limitless, and by tapping into them, we too find limitless ideas for blog posts.)
“A man’s reach must exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?” Robert Browning wrote.
So I guess my perhaps far-fetched ultimate ideal for the blog is that I may overhear what the Spirit is saying to me, and saying to the Church, and record it. Can a blogger or a blog have a sort of prophetic ministry? Who knows? Perhaps!
Read my new memoir: Rosaries, Reading, Secrets: A Catholic Childhood in India (US) or UK.
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My book of essays: Wandering Between Two Worlds (US) or UK
Thanks for the encouragement, Jen, Your posts are beautiful and poetic. And you have the most beautiful photographs!
I love exactly what you're doing, and you're such a naturally good writer that it comes out great. But. You are a *real* writer, someone who probably needs to write as much as she needs to breathe. I don't think I'm in that category, so I'm a little more relaxed perhaps about what I post. I look forward to all you have to say.
*I'm off to the Oregon Coast til Monday–have a great week and enjoy Sweden!!
Oh I read my posts through 2-3 times. But they will have repetitions of words, phrases and ideas; things will be said that could be said in half the words; the ideas may not be in the most logical order, there will be long asides that could be deleted; I may not have the perfect word, and certainly will not have pruned most adverbs and many adjectives—all things I would have done if I were writing professionally.
However, too high standards and one can risk freezing as well as losing the joy of writing.
However, I have only been blogging for 15 months, and am still learning on the job!!
I have often wondered about that. Being pretty new to blogging I started off with just writing my thoughts, and then when I posted one on Facebook I read and re-read it to make sure it was good quality. I then started doing that for all of them since I was posting them on Facebook and felt like they needed to be good quality!
But it does seem to give me more of a block, and I skip out on loads of things that come into my head to write, so I am quite seriously considering going more your way. Though I don't know if I could ever post without reading it thru a few times first 🙂