I began blogging before the word had become part of the common vernacular. In the early days, people wrote about their day - their life. Online journals formed the basis of LiveJournal, DiaryLand, and Blogger. Any thoughts of blogs covering a niche or subject were years away.
People have become obsessed with traffic, search engine optimisation, and any number of other pointless escapades.
Writing online has become the Emperor’s New Clothes. Everyone has been brainwashed to believe that writing online should be short, snappy, direct, regular, and focussed. Forgive me for saying it, but that’s a damn sausage machine, and all they’re good at is churning out the same crap - again, and again - predictably.
Who wants to be predictable? Who wants to be the same?
I’m not entirely sure where I’m going with this - but perhaps that’s the point. I’m writing freestyle, with no aim, and no direction. What you’re reading is almost a direct transcript of my thoughts as they left my brain, rolled through my fingers and appeared on the screen. The improvised stage play versus the edited movie.
I am reminded of the movie “Finding Forrester”, where the reclusive author sits his student down at a typewriter and instructs him to write. Not to think. Just to write. Write anything. It’s a similar idea to NaNoWriMo, where quantity is valued over quality - while there will be a lot of garbage, there will also be brilliance.