Since I write a blog and I know how, when and why I started, I am interested in blog writers. I am not sure of my reading speed but generally I prefer a written post to a purely video one. "Vlog" or video blog or video web log seems quick and easy but I seem to get more from a written post. Once the camera is recording, it is rather easy in the name of relaxed friendliness to go off on the beautiful weather or how things are not what they used to be. The sort of people I am drawn to are a bit more focused on what they want to say and write their message out.
I do encourage writing down a thought or two about each day, much as one might in a diary. Sure, a diary can be a private writing that is not meant for others to read. Ideas, principles, purposes and plans are interesting to me and I like to use this modern medium of personal publishing to put my writing out where it can be seen. When I do that, I get some very good returns and that is after reaping the value of selecting what I want to write about and putting down some words that more or less transmit what is on my mind.
The value of composing words to convey thoughts and feelings is easy to underestimate, I think. I suppose that having a practice of mindfulness and a commitment to look carefully for what gifts and beauties there are to enjoy gives me a good chance of noticing something funny or poignant or sacred. It is an old idea that living a good time, and then re-living it while thinking what it was and how it got my funny bone, is a way to live important moments twice.
But it also easy to underestimate the value of taking a look at what others are doing and saying. Today, I met Ruth Graham, an independent writer and former editor. She has a blog. I also follow from time to time Zia Yang, who also has a blog. Blog writers are often younger than I am and are not retired. They may be parents of young children, or busy trying to earn a living completing writing projects of all sorts. There are dozens of reasons why it may have been many days since the last time a post was posted.
The typical shock a writer sees when noticing the date of their last post is enough to bring out feelings of guilt and internal accusations of laziness and guilty undependability. "It's been that long since I last wrote!" Whether you read an old diary or a kindergarten poem or a teen love letter, it is ok that time has gone by since you last wrote. If you focus on the fact that you have returned to your blog or your photography or your novel, you may be able to taste your steadiness and conquest of time. No need for apologies. Put that energy into a nice statement of what has happened in the interim or into a subject that has attracted your attention since.
