This is my first macro blog post. I’m not sure if there is such a term, a macro blog. But then, if the term “micro blogging” exists, it should stand that “macro blogging” exists – ergo, regular blogging.
The word “blogging” carries with it a sort of stigma, that it’s an amateurish online diary of high school melodrama, a guilty pleasure of sorts but not worthy reading material. Nevertheless, I’m sticking with the word.
I’m blogging.
I’ve committed to writing regularly, in full sentences, with a proper beginning, middle, and end. I’m a writer, and I’m a tad concerned with what social media has done to my writing skills. Sure, it’s nice to have instant gratification arise from short bursts of words, rather than having to slog for days over a script and not get any response until months later, when the episode airs.
Also, as a writer, blogging regularly creates several habits that are, dare I say, critical to writing. Commitment, practice, exhibition, and structure.
Commitment
A Hong Kong film veteran once told me off when I told him that I only write when there’s inspiration. “Pfft,” he snorted. “Real writers treat their job like any other occupation. They sit there and write from 9 to 5, then go home and eat dinner. It doesn’t matter whether they’re inspired or not, they just sit there and write. The next day they come back and look at what they’ve written. If it’s good, they use it; if it’s rubbish, at least they have some material to work with, and they start over. None of this nonsense about inspiration. Writing is about discipline.”
And that’s what it boils down to. You cannot hope to be inspired 100% of the time, so you cannot write only when you are inspired. A professional, seasoned writer is able to write well even when there’s no inspiration. Because when there’s no inspiration, there’s commitment.
Practice
Writing is a skill like any other. It’s like a sport, but I hardly dare compare it as such because I have a severe dearth of sporting metaphors to draw upon. To write well, you must practice. A lot.
And improve upon your writing. There’s no point in writing twenty novels if there’s no difference between your first and twentieth novel. Write with the aim to improve upon your writing. It doesn’t matter (well, to an extent anyway) how poorly you think you write – you must start practicing in order to get better.
Exhibition
I am of the firm belief that you must write to an audience that is not yourself. To an audience of strangers. Because you write to tell a story, you write to entertain, you write to inform. Writing for yourself is as good as pleasuring yourself, and that’s not much good if you want to make a living out of it.
To that end, you must put your work out there to be judged by strangers that you will never see, never know, and never be able to justify yourself to. It’s a sort of trial by fire, to let other people see your work. You’ll always be insecure, always be afraid to let others see what you’ve done.
But as a writer, you must get over it. You must learn to expose yourself. You might not be comfortable with it, or you might not ever get used to it. But still, you have to be able to let others see what you have created, in order to be a professional writer.
Structure
I’m really bad at this. But you need to learn how to craft an opening for a piece of work, be it an article, a script, a blog entry, anything that’s more than 140 characters long. You need to have your content flow logically and smoothly, not jump from peanut shells to curtain threads in a single sentence. And you must end with a point. I cannot emphasise this enough.
Whenever you write, you must have a purpose. Be it a lesson, theme, idea. You must make the reader come away having gained from reading what you have written, otherwise you’re just a waste of time. Don’t write without a purpose.
That said, I’ve convinced myself that I should blog more. And blog more I shall.
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