I've decided to keep the blog up. I'm still thinking about focusing the content more. I've included a vast hodgepodge of content for the past two years, and I think it's time for a change.
In school I was taught that the best writing is disciplined. You establish limits of some kind, whether it's length or subject matter or voice or style and work hard to stay within those limits. Doing this helps you to write more accurately (find exactly the right words to communicate what you want) and more concisely (use the fewest words possible).
Both of these -- accuracy and concision -- do not come naturally to any of us. When in conversation, I tend to repeat myself a lot and flounder around for the right words. Out loud. Writing allows me the time to think carefully and seize upon exactly the word or phrase I want. I can also go back and edit, removing or rewording all my repetitions. I like that. I always have.
One of the reasons I started blogging two years ago was to motivate myself to write more. Once I graduated college, started working, married, and had children, writing fell to the wayside. I've tried keeping journals both in notebooks (I love notebooks) and in a word processor. Handwriting takes too long for this busy mom and editing it either results in ugly pages or a long rewrite. For some reason, I never could get into keeping the journal on my laptop, even though the results are neater. (Guess it isn't enough like a notebook for me!)
Keeping a blog provided the key missing ingredient -- accountability. My family and close friends knew I was doing this and were dropping by to read. Wah-lah! Motivation!
Now that I've established the habit of writing regularly, I want to challenge myself again. I need limits to discipline my writing more. But I'm just not sure yet what that will look like.
For now, I'm going to keep things the same. With a baby due to arrive any day, it doesn't seem a good time to make big changes.
That said, I don't plan to post much about the baby here (though perhaps a birth announcement), which means I may not post much for awhile after he's born. All my writing time will go first to updating our Carepage and our password-protected family scrapbook. If you are interested in reading these, email me at grammar dot punctuation at yahoo dot com.
