Love-Hate Relationship · 10 August 2019
I have a love-hate relationship with blogging.
I love to write. I love to post my writing on the internet each week (regardless of its quality). But there are days when I really hate blogging.
I am not new to blogging. I have done it for over a decade now. Every week is different from the one before. But week to week, the process looks something like the following:
Write, edit, post, repeat. Write, edit, post, repeat. Write, forget the editing, just get the doggone thing posted. Write, edit, post repeat. Write, edit, edit, edit, frantically create a picture because I forgot to do so beforehand, post, sigh a sigh of relief. Look desperately to see if I have something ready, grab a picture from the internet (using appropriate citations, of course), post. Forget to write something until the last minute, hastily put together some words that pass as a picture, post at the last minute.
Yes. Some weeks are better than others. Still, I get the posts done, and I enjoy the process. Mostly.
Which is where the love-hate relationship comes in.
You might be thinking that I hate those crazy weeks where I write, edit, edit, edit, frantically create a picture because I forgot to do so beforehand, post, sigh a sigh of relief. Or when I look desperately to see if I have something ready, grab a picture from the internet (using appropriate citations, of course), post. Or when I forget to write something until the last minute, hastily put together some words that pass as a picture, post at the last minute. It would certainly be logical that I hate those weeks. But some of those frantic weeks are the weeks that I enjoy the most. They are the ones that I love. Not that the quality of writing is any better or worse than at any other times. I just enjoy the process as well as the product. Regardless of the quality.
The times that I hate blogging is when I am in a rut. When I have lots to say, but no words to say them with. (Which is different than having writer’s block. Which I have already claimed is a fake malady.) Or those times when I have nothing to say and no words to use. Those are the times that I hate blogging. When the blog just does not want to get written.
But the sign of being a real writer is when you write anyway. When you have too much to say and you do not know where to start, but you write anyway. When you do not have words to say what you want to say, but you write anyway. When you have nothing to say, but you write anyway. When you are in a rut, but you write anyway. Those are the times when you know you are a writer. When you hate to write, but you just write anyway.
Whether anybody acknowledges that I am a writer, I write. Whether anybody ever reads my stuff or not, I write anyway. It does not matter that I have been writing over a decade and still have about the same amount of Facebook fans and Twitter followers as when I started. It does not matter that of my readers (both real and imaginary), I only know two who read pretty much every week. (I am sure there are a couple more out there. Or maybe that is wishful thinking.) But when it comes down to it, all that matters is that I keep writing. And keep working to develop a following. It is not always fun, but I cannot imagine a life without writing. Just like I cannot imagine a life without breathing.
What it comes down to is that I like to practice. I always have. In fact, they call what doctors do a practice. They call what lawyers do a practice. And that is all I do. Practice. I practice writing so that maybe one day somebody besides me will call me a writer. Maybe even a mediocre one. (By the way, as a coach, I tell athletes that they will improve more when they love to practice than when they just love to play the game.)
When all is said and done, I am still just creating a body of work. I am still just practicing to be a writer one day. I am still just blogging one day at a time. And even though they are few and far between, there are those days when I hate blogging. I guess I need to change my premise. I really have a usually-love-seldom-hate relationship with blogging.
© 2019 Michael T. Miyoshi
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