Blogging Better, And Lasting Longer

Posted at 7:19 pm on Wednesday, February 11, 2009, in Think Piece, and tagged blogging.

I am by no means an expert on the subject — nor do I intend to go all self-righteous Merlin Mann on anyone — but I still have a voice on the matter, and in my opinion, a reasonably authoritative voice. Within reason that is, of course.

I have found that there are two ways to improve one’s writing, or blogging. These methods are neither groundbreaking nor long-held secrets. They may in fact be widely published. I don’t know, and I try not to waste my time figuring these details out. I just know that these two have helped me to write better, although maybe that is not saying much.

I have written on this blog for over five years, and I have a difficult time reading what I wrote two or three years ago, let alone almost six. Over the past five-plus years I believe my writing has improved, maybe not in content or persuasive opinion, but in style, or at least I’d like to think so. And I believe the following two reasons are why.

Writing. It seems silly, but it is true. You must write to improve. Duh, right? But it is more than that. You cannot just think about writing, talk about writing, imagine that you are writing. You simply must write, and write often.

I’ve met many people who have told me they’d love to blog because they have so much to write about. Most people never do, but of those that do start blogging, it is not uncommon for their writing to suck. (For clear examples of sucky writing, see my 2004 archives.) Fledgling bloggers realize this and most stop blogging altogether, the absolute worst decision they could make (if they did, in fact, want to blog). The “sudden” quitting is usually chalked-up to poor readership or little ad revenue (who are they kidding?), but the real reason is much more clear: their writing plain sucked, and they didn’t know what to do about it, so they quit.

The solution to this conundrum that the incipient bloggers failed to see was that they needed to write more, that their sucky writing was only temporary (unless they truly sucked at writing). They need to continue writing awful until their writing is not awful, just unpleasant. And they must continue writing unpleasant until their writing is not unpleasant, just mediocre. And so forth. It is the only way to improve.

Besides maybe Harper Lee, every blogger or writer needs time to evolve into something someone would be willing to read. It is no surprise that Harper Lee never did publish again after the surprise success of To Kill A Mockingbird. She peaked way too soon, and there was nowhere for her writing to go or for her writing to take her. She thought that she simply could not improve. But Lee is an anomaly; very few bloggers are Harper Lee. The analogy would be to have your first blog-post trumpeted as a marvel on kottke.org or Daring Fireball or by Seth Godin. What would you do as an encore? Retire on top would be the easiest answer.

Reading. This is a little less intuitive, but just as basic, and in my opinion, much more critical for improving one’s writing. You must read. Endlessly. This is the only way for a blogger to learn how to write better. There are countless writers, all with individual styles, and any writer can learn from these styles, albeit most often subconsciously (which makes it so convenient).

One thing that I have noticed is that my writing is directly related to the material I am reading at the time, not in subject manner, but in tone and style, and I’ve made note of it when I’ve noticed. It is nearly impossible to avoid this phenomenon if you write often (or daily, as I do). And this is not a bad thing. There is so much to learn from reading (how to handle sentence and paragraph structure, dialogue, tense and person, just to name a few), and it is ignorant to believe otherwise. Unless you’re Harper Lee.

If you asked 500 people to write the same exact thing — an account of making a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich — the result would be 500 different stories, without a doubt. The subject would be the same, but the tone, style and substance would alter significantly from writer to writer. And that is an important aspect to understand. There are other ways to write, and the only way to discover these infinite writing styles is by reading.

Reading also provides the only proven method of expanding one’s lexicon. Searching thesaurus.com to replace a word here and there simply doesn’t cut it. Discovering a new word or phrase in context, placed and used effortlessly, is the best way to adopt that language and be able to use it as your own. Try as you might, memorizing words will never get you there.

There you have it, my guide to blogging better (and lasting longer). I guess it is quite simple when all is said and done. Read and write, that is all there is to it. No excuses.

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