Iāve posted about writing in the past, why I write, whether I should do more, and recently Iāve been thinking about taking thisĀ casual hobby a bit further.
At the same time Iāve been focusing more on the things I post here which seems to have equated to longer posts. Not a bad thing but it was never quite my aim and, whilst itās nice to get some praise, I find myself a little boxed in by the informal rules I seem to have set myself.
Last night I sat down and again tried to finish a few posts I have in draft at the moment. I managed to push one over the finish line but the rest sit there looking at me, challenging me, mocking me.
In my frustration I wondered if there were any other ways I could kick-start my writing or improve my focus. Google replied, as always, with several thousand responses, one of which suggested not getting hooked up on the length of the thing you are writing, let it be as long or short as it needs.
Not a bad idea.
Enter the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon.
I had a vague recollection of reading something similar recently, that short form could be just as good as long, and so the idea stuck as one to try. I decided that tomorrow (today) I would just write a blog post and see what happened. Post and be damned and all that.
With a solution in place I headed for my RSS feeds for a distraction and up pops a post by Jason Snell – Bigger than a Tweet:
a lot of interesting, albeit small, stuff would just fall to the floor and be swept away with the other detritus at the end of the day: Amusing, interesting tidbits that would never be seen because they didnāt cross some imaginary threshold.
Jason also links to a post by Andy Baio which is the piece I recently read. In it Andy talks about mid-length blogging, and links to a post by Gina Trapani on a similar topic, I had also read her post. Baader-Meinhof-tastic.
Iām not sure whether what I do here is mid-length, short-form, or something completely different. I just know that itās fun. I think Iād gotten away from that in my desire to be a ābetterā writer which something I can, and should, pursue in other avenues.
So here it is, the blog post I promised myself Iād write. I didnāt have much of an idea of how it would turn out, I donāt care how long it is, nor if anyone reads it. ItĀ is neither a long read, mid-length, or short-form piece of writing.
Itās just a blog post.
No school like the old school. Right?
