Howefitz Blog

As I sit down and begin to type, it’s 5am. I don’t have to be at work for 3 hours. What in God’s name am I doing awake at this forsaken hour?

Blogging.

Why? What’s so important that I feel I should set my alarm and get ready for work early so that I can sit at the computer and write about my family and my life?

I find it soothing. It relaxes me. If I don’t get to do this, I feel like I might explode.

Crazy, huh?

But the other day I found a bit of insight in an essay by Ray Bradbury:

‘I have learned, on my journeys, that if I let a day go by without writing, I grow uneasy. Two days and I am in tremor. Three and I suspect lunacy. Four and I might as well be a hog, suffering the flux in a wallow. An hour’s writing is tonic. I’m on my feet, running in circles, and yelling for a clean pair of spats.’

The quote is from a book I just started reading by Bradbury entitled ‘Zen in the Art of Writing‘.

Darn it, Bradbury’s right.

A lot of my readers are fellow writers and bloggers, so the above probably comes as no surprise to you. Late at night something awakes you, and you feel that hot, burning sensation rise from the base of your neck to the back of your head. That Thing under the bed that compels you to get up and jot something down or fling open your laptop.

Maybe it happens in the middle of the day, when you’re in the middle of some menial chore. That little voice that creeps in to your consciousness and whispers, ‘Have I got a story for you…’

The zen in blogging is that there is a certain freedom to having your own space to create and be discovered. You not only get to exorcise whatever demons may be plaguing you, or share your triumphs, or simply rant about things that you love and despise, but you also join a community. You find kindred spirits who actually enjoy looking at pictures of your goofy kids! We as bloggers, see in other bloggers a bit of ourselves. But we also quickly learn that in our similarities we are each unique individuals, with our own gifts to share.

Blogging is about creating something, but it’s also about sharing, writing to be read, and in many cases, reading to be read. I don’t know that anything else with this much power has existed before in the history of mankind. No one is telling you not to, more often than not, you’ll find encouragement. There’s no publisher telling you you’re not good enough. If a post isn’t good enough, it’s up to you to click ‘publish’.

You’ll learn from the feedback whether you were received well. If not, do you care? What are your goals for your blog? Are you trying to make money? Then maybe you should care about your audience. Are you just having fun? Then you’re getting the most out of this crazy fun hobby, and the audience doesn’t matter. If you keep honing your skills, they’ll catch up…

I’d like to leave you today with one final thought from Mr. Bradbury:

‘Every morning I jump out of bed and step on a landmine. The landmine is me.

After the explosion, I spend the rest of the day putting the pieces together.

Now, it’s your turn. Jump!’

See you in the blogosphere…

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