If you're a blogger you're familiar with the problem of self-editing. It's the blogger's auto-immune disease - with the realization that more and more people are reading what you write, you find yourself less willing to say what you're Actually Thinking.
Is what you write "serious enough"? Is what you write "interesting enough"? The "dark, inaccessible part of our personality" that Freud describes throws rocks at you and makes every word you write suspect. What you did for fulfillment and pleasure becomes strewn with land-mines. It's all very interesting at a certain level.
Once the blogger starts this cycle, breaking out of it takes something dramatic. Becoming willing to hit the "publish post button" again (and again) requires a change of mind and a change of heart, and often a change of direction.
I am, of course, referring to someone else, not me. Ahem.
1 comment:
And this self-editing is a good thing. Successive posts are better because of your reflection on previous ones; drafting new articles is easier because some of the clutter has been cleared in earlier ones; there is fresh motivation for research because that last topic's been covered for all it's worth.
You're right about the value of "a change of mind..heart..direction" as motivators for publishing again. Wouldn't the blog would be one-dimensional and predictable otherwise? Yes it would. Keep writing!
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