Blog Help

Dare to Be an Eccentric Blogger
By Kim-Marie Ward

A lot of writers keep journals or blogs onlinen, but unfortunately, they aren’t always being used to their fullest advantage.

Look around the internet and you can find a variety of journals and so many of them are the same: what people did today, who they saw, where they were. But the truth is, they’re most interesting for the blog-keepers than their readers (unless those readers are also friends). While that’s fine for the masses to do, it is an untapped resource for writers.

You can make better use of your journaling time by being more descriptive, and blatantly so. Some writers feel guilty even contemplating such a thing, worried that friends and family might think they’re being “fake” or “too artistic.” However, in your defense, you are a writer. You have a right to use whatever you have at your disposal to improve your abilities. You have license to be eccentric so just let them assume your exercises in creative journal writing are just part of the whole “Writer Mystique.”

Try describing your world, as though you’re writing a novel. For example, you’ll see that many journal-keepers may mention places or people they know, but not tell us much about them. Next time, try painting a word picture of what you see. Keep in mind that there doesn’t need to be natural progression with each entry as there would be with a novel. This is an exercise in expanding your writing capabilities.

For example, instead of “I wish it would stop raining,” try: “Six days of steady rain has left me feeling as gray as the unrelenting dark outside.”

Or, what about the people in your life? If you’ve never described them before, do so now. Try your mother, your significant other, a friend, or an enemy:

Anna Grable is not a typical mother. I always thought of her as “The Reluctant Mother” and when I told her about the nickname yesterday, she reacted exactly as I knew she would. She threw her head back and laughed. “You know me so well, you clever girl. It’s perfect!” she cried, clapping her pudgy hands with glee. I suddenly wished I hadn’t told her. Part of the beauty of our relationship is that we pretend we’re like most mothers and daughters - we pretend not to understand one another. It somehow made it easier to deal with her strange behaviors when I was growing up. When she was waking everyone in the house at two o’clock in the morning to wash walls, or when she wouldn’t come to my school plays on the premise that she didn’t understand the stories, it was easier to say “She’s an odd one,” than having to face the truth. The truth was, and is, Anna is the most selfish woman I’ve ever met. She’s self-indulgent, and addicted to attention, going out of her way to garner it whenever and wherever she can, and avoiding all situations where she is not the star. She likes to think she’s eccentric, and she took the “Reluctant Mother” label as proof of it. I expect it will be a topic of conversation with her friends, who, like me, indulge her in spite of ourselves.

It doesn’t have to be great. It only has to be descriptive in some way. Let go of embarrassment and just experiment. Stretch and exercise your writing “muscles.” Not only will your blog be more interesting to read, your growing ability will transfer well to your fiction writing, and you will have a storehouse of information to use if ever you need it.

If you’d rather keep your creative journaling private, then by all means, do so. I keep mine semi-private in that the one where I do my creative journaling is one my family and friends don’t see; however, strangers seem to enjoy it! I’ve even convinced them I have a fascinating life - simply because of how I write there.

Kim-Marie Ward is a freelance editor of both non-fiction books and fiction novels, a ghostwriter, and has written several articles for various ezines and newsletters (online and in print). She's an active member on http://www.Writing.Com, an online community for Writers. Stop by and visit her portfolio at: Kim-Marie on Writing.Com.

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