So I decided to start a blog. I always need excuses to write, and it seems like blogging offers some instant gratification—maybe not enough to compete with Twitter but it’s at least a faster turn around than academic outlets. I’m also hoping it can help me to improve some of my writing habits, generally. I currently have a bad habit of incessantly typing, deleting, retyping, etc. every sentence over and over. I’d consider the process worth it if I were an especially creative or imaginative writer. But I’m not. When I do the type-delete-retype song and dance, I’m almost always just trying to make the sentence more efficient or flow better. Goals which are, of course, invariably easier when I wait a day or two before editing. Ideally, blogging with some consistency would help me learn how to write first (emphasis on volume) and edit later (emphasis on quality). We’ll see how it goes. Right now, typing two paragraphs is a bit exhausting. If my posts get longer after a few months of blogging, I’ll consider it a success.
Aside from writing goals, my decision to blog is also inspired by seeing people who have (a) been blogging long enough to amass an impressively large archive of neat posts and (b) made the rotation for R-bloggers broadcasts. I need to look into the latter—it’s possible that could happen sooner rather than later—but the former I’ll file under long-term goals.