Finding my blogging center for SpaceAgeSage
May 19th, 2008 by spaceagesage
When I first started my SpaceAgeSage blog, I wrote distilled versions of all the experiences, martial arts training, and research I’ve done into the body/mind connection. I wanted to make it easy for those who don’t have time to read self-help books to find many of those insights encapsulated here.
But then I found myself caught up in the blog world and how “things are done.” I changed my writing style a bit to fit the suggested blog ideals. But instead of giving out nuggets of wisdom, insight, and condensed overviews of how to change the inner and outer self, I started writing McNuggets. The more I tried to fit into someone else’s idea of what a blog is, the more I found myself struggling to write. Before the change, my posts flowed out of me like a Colorado river during springtime run off.
So what have I learned?
I am not as creative if I try to fit someone else’s mold.
Living in someone’s shadow, blindly following a mentor, or doing something one way because, “that’s the way it is done” can leave us out of sync with our inner drive to be true to who and what we are. I taught karate for years, and students loved my style because I was formal, yet crazy; repetitive enough to help them learn, but spontaneous enough to tailor lessons to each class; and challenging to the max, but I always left them motivated and encouraged. I want to bring that energy to blog writing.
Sometimes the rules, standards, and norms work; sometimes they don’t.
I am the first to avoid re-inventing the wheel. If people have done the research and learned the lessons the hard way, why not listen to them? But I think blogs are different. They can be so personal that they need to reflect the heart and mind of the writer, not a formula. I just picked up my copy of Darren Rowse’s Problogger Book Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income, and I will absorb the information like a sponge because this man knows his blogging, but as I read it, I will filter it through my own heart and mind to see what will work for me and what won’t.
Making a wrong turn doesn’t mean I’m wrong. It means change direction.
As my writing urge lessened a little, I realized I was good enough a writer to keep up the flow, but it wasn’t as fun or as fulfilling. I started to doubt myself. I finally realized I had made a wrong turn. I wasn’t writing from my heart as much or as powerfully. I was “trying to write like a blogger.” Once I recognized this, I had to take stock of my initial reasons for blogging and see where my heart wanted to go. Armed with a little of that “To thy own self be true” thinking, I found my path. In the next few days, I will toss out the Mcnuggets and get back to the meaty tutorials on how to change your life to become a better you.
Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.
~ Albert Einstein ~