Writing blog posts over many years teaches you many things, but what are the key learnings? Knowing these can help you create words that connect.
This blog post recognizes the momentous occasion of publishing 500 posts. Some posts are from guest writers, but most are from my authorship.
Five hundred posts are a lot of words, and when you create something of worth for an extended period, you begin to hone the craft. You pick up skills and techniques that work for you.
So I am going to share nine key learnings since I started writing in July 2012.
Do you want to create something meaningful? These pointers will help.
What I have learned from publishing 500 blog posts
- Everything starts with listening.
Before you write a single word, you will need to listen. Listen to the multiple streams of thoughts that come flowing around your brain. It might be something you read or a podcast you have heard. A verse of scripture, a poem, or a song. It comes down to listening and discerning the one idea for you to focus on. Listening takes time, unhurried time, and permission to give yourself for that seed to germinate. - Your vibe attracts your tribe
There are people out there who will connect to your writing style, thoughts, and wisdom. You simply need to connect with them. Your vibe, what you find helpful and interesting, will attract your tribe, those who truly get you and want more. So share what you are reading and finding helpful—little quotes and thoughts. When you do this, others like you will gather around your campfire of wisdom and form a community. Please, be yourself; everyone else is taken. - Be consistent, and show up.
Every week at the same time, share your creation even if you think it’s not that great. People, and search engine algorithms, will get to know when to expect your latest piece. Showing up creates habits in your brain and patterns in your lifestyle. ‘This is what I do, this is who I am, and this is when I do it.’ You will start to see everything as a potential idea for writing. You will move from being someone who writes to being a writer. - Do it anyway
You will have your detractors. You will have people close to you that are ambivalent about your calling. You may have people who might thoroughly criticize and seek to destroy your work. Write and build anyway.
At times, I have had to hold onto this beautiful writing from Mother Teresa.
‘In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.’ Mother Teresa
The full quote is in the quotes section. - Write from your coalface
I have a little phrase that keeps singing to me. No one knows coal like a coal miner.
I want to hear words from people digging away at their dark coal face. I don’t want theories, philosophies, or any unlived truths.
So I write from my heart first, then the head, and then dance between the two. I want to connect with the dark coalface of other people’s lives and shed some light. To connect, I have to share something of my coalface. I am a beggar myself, searching for bread and sharing a few crumbs. - Write and then edit
It’s so easy to write and edit as you go. Try and resist this. Getting all the words out on the page first is best, then go back later and edit. When I want to get the words out with no distractions, such as spelling checkers, I use a free app called Write Monkey. It’s a simple, distraction-free tool that’s like writing on an old-fashioned typewriter. Make as many mistakes and errors as you like. Then, you will find yourself free to pour out the words without distraction. - Keep the focus on One idea
When hammering a nail into a piece of wood, you have one nail and one hammer. The point of what you are writing is that one nail. What is that nail? What is the one point? If you have multiple points, you will confuse the reader. If you confuse, you lose. Noise is the enemy. Too many ideas will dilute the one that truly needs the focus. - Have an overarching theme.
My focus in my writing is Mental Health and Christian Spiritual Formation. If I were to sprinkle in articles on car mechanics, recipes, or shoe repair, it would confuse you. Everything I write and share has a connection to my overarching theme. Perhaps this post doesn’t, but it’s my party, and I have the microphone! - Become a quote collector
There are so many wonderful authors who have been there and done that. As I read them, I come across wonderful little jewels of sentences. I have to collect them. I can’t help myself. So I highlight them if they are on my kindle or underline them in a paper book. Then I go back later and organize them into categories in Google docs. So when I write a new blog post or a book, I can easily find and share them as I have done below. I can also share on Social Media, and this vibe attracts my tribe.
Nine learnings from 500 blog posts. There are many more I could share, so I am writing a book about writing. I hope these nine gleanings have helped you.
If you have questions or would like to talk more about your writing, please feel free to contact me.
Quotes to consider
-
Christianity is one beggar telling another beggar where he found bread. D.T. Niles
- People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway.
What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, will often be forgotten. Do good anyway.
Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway.
In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.
Mother Teresa - People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it. George Bernard Shaw
- I have learned one thing. As Woody [Allen] says, ‘Showing up is 80 percent of life.’ Sometimes it’s easier to hide home in bed. I’ve done both. Marshall Brickman
- Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner. Lao Tzu
- Inspiration usually comes during work, rather than before it. Madeleine L’Engle
- We write to heighten our own awareness of life. We write to lure and enchant and console others. We write to serenade our lovers. We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection. We write, like Proust, to render all of it eternal, and to persuade ourselves that it is eternal. We write to be able to transcend our life, to reach beyond it. We write to teach ourselves to speak with others, to record the journey into the labyrinth. We write to expand our world when we feel strangled, or constricted, or lonely…When I don’t write, I feel my world shrinking. I feel I am in prison. I feel I lose my fire and my color. It should be a necessity, as the sea needs to heave, and I call it breathing.” Anaïs Nin
- Thoughts disentangle themselves when they pass through the lips and fingertips.
- I always try to preach from my scars and not my wounds. So, talking about depression is not in any way a wound for me. Nadia Bolz-Weber
- Our great problem is trafficking in unlived truth. We try to communicate what we’ve never experienced in our own life. Dwight L. Moody
Further Reading
Barry Pearman
Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash
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