For quite some time, I’ve been wanting to take ‘writing’ more seriously. I don’t mean I want to write a book or even articles for a local paper or magazine. I just want to write small articles for my own entertainment that I will publish on this blog.  I sporadically write in this blog, but it’s pretty ‘light and fluffy’, usually something about an item I’ve baked or a place I’ve been too. So nothing too serious or hard to write. On my other blog (a photo one) I’ve actually had followers tell me that they like my ‘short and to the point’ descriptions of my photos.  My friends have also observed a certain child-like character can creep into my photo blog writing at times. One friend can tell when I am tired or in a hurry, as the wording sounds like something a 10-year old would write. And she is right, I do that when I’m tired. I know that good writing is hard work, and it’s a skill, and it’s something that some people are naturally good at.

I always thought I fell within the ‘naturally good at writing’ category. But, over the years, I have learned that even if you are good at something, you can quickly become stagnant in the skill if you do not hone it. And sadly, I’ve not been honing my skill shall we say. It’s been neglected, quite badly at times. I’ve felt a bit lazy about writing. Perhaps even a little stressed. I guess it’s because I’ve become bit of a writing snob. With snobbery comes a certain amount of fear that I will be even more critical of what I write. Or heaven forbid, perhaps in my eagerness to start writing again, I’ll use ‘there’ instead of ‘their’ or confuse ‘me and I’.

Perhaps all of my written thoughts will be totally unoriginal and derivative drivel. Or maybe I will use clichéd hackneyed phrases like ‘overly derivative’. No doubt, I will probably write about something I don’t know enough about. Actually, that’s probably one of the more stressful things about having a blog with any kind of following (or a Facebook page for that matter). You need to gets your facts straight. And the more you write, the more facts you need to check and the more opinion you need to back up with sound and reasoned arguments.

Of-course, you only need to worry about backing up opinions if you think that someone might actually read what you write and think ‘balderdash’ what a poorly written and ignorant piece of crap this blog post is. I could do much better. And to that I would say, go ahead! Do better! Be creative and write something for a change. Stop just sucking on the teat of collective creativity. Stick your hand up, put your head on a literal chopping block and write something. Who cares if it’s not original? Being original is pretty hard anyway. But you can be yourself. And on some days just doing that is challenge enough.

Now, I am tired, and wish to stop writing. This short piece, has probably three sentences I really like. That is enough to spur me on. It is enough to remind me, that writing stimulates thought, which brings more clarification, which sharpens the mind and makes it easier to write. Yes, writing more makes you write more.

On that note, I say adieu and good night to the first day of Two Thousand and Fourteen.