Just Try
That’s the same thing my mom used to tell me about going to the bathroom. “Just try.”
Clarence today was talking about being afraid to put out there something that you know think is not your best work.
I don’t think I hold myself in such high regard. Not as a writer, anyway. Whether or not I should is a topic for another post. I’m not so much concerned anymore that what I’m going to post isn’t good enough. I think it’s more that I’m not as interested in what I have to say sometimes. Anymore. Sometimes.
As Aaron and his commenters were debating the relative merits (or not) of Twitter, Aaron unintentionally made the point that just because you as a writer think something is interesting doesn’t mean that your readers agree with you. Just because you think you are interesting doesn’t mean other people do. I made the point that it’s usually not the writer that judges whether or not the content is good; it’s the reader.
So what do you as a writer do? Just try. I told Clarence to just try.
They’re not all going to be winners. But sometimes if you make that small imperfect start, you might surprise yourself with what comes out. You know, it’s good practice. Best case scenario: You get feedback. Worst case scenario: You get feedback. Right?
Which is why I opened up this window and started typing. Because I had lots of thoughts about stuff to blog about today, but I was busy and I let them go and now I can’t remember what they were. But I figured I’d just try.
April 7th, 2008 at 9:37 pm
Very well put! And some advice I could really use myself. “Just try”, and I’ll be sure to do that too.
April 9th, 2008 at 8:08 am
Yup, that’s what I tell the first graders when they whine “I can’t.” I put on my teacher voice and teacher smile and cheerily say “You can try!” Then I walk away.
I was also thinking about who bloggers write for. Do you start for yourself and get an audience who is interested in what you have to say? Or do you start with an audience in mind and tailor your posts to their tastes? Or both? Or neither?
Anyway, I liked your post.
April 9th, 2008 at 10:13 am
Do you start for yourself and get an audience who is interested in what you have to say? Or do you start with an audience in mind and tailor your posts to their tastes? Or both? Or neither?
Yes.
That’s a constant topic of discussion and the gist of it is it depends on what you’re trying to accomplish with your blog. Here I tend towards the former. For Metblogs I tend towards the latter.