Confession #1: I am not a good golfer.
Last year, I signed up for ladies group golf lessons with my mom at the local golf course. As the others confidently took swing after swing at the driving range, I carefully lined up each shot, running over all the steps in my head. Feet shoulder-width apart, bent knees, straight back, butt out, arms stretched out to form a ‘V’, etc. etc. And invariably (excepting a few lucky shots), the ball would dribble a couple meters in front of me, in the dirt. Before long, the golf pro commented, “You’re an A+ student, aren’t you? You’re thinking too much.”
Confession #2: I am not a good blogger.
So when I read Andrew Sullivan’s article “Why I Blog”, where he mentions the advice he received from his editor, Michel Kinsley, in his early stages of blogging: don’t “think too hard before writing”, this simple comment completely resonated with me in more ways than one. Since my first foray into the uncharted jungles of the Internet, this has been my problem, again and again. Early on, many of my friends were very active on both topical and general websites, posting articles on everything from politics to professional wrestling and welcoming comments on the respective site’s forum. While I was perfectly comfortable commenting on others posts, I more often than not left my own half-written articles abandoned…they were either not interesting, witty, well written, or insightful enough for me to dare to post. So while my friends made a name for themselves, taking a swing at whatever thoughts came to mind, I was left in the dust.
So as I now attempt to make my mark on the Web, yet again, it comes to no surprise that I am suffering from “blogger’s block”. Still, I’m up for the challenge of overcoming overthinking, partly by practice and partly by observing how others use blogs and other social media effectively for their purposes. Bring it on, blogosphere!
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