NoBloMo #28 - Reminiscing About NoBloMo

This past month has been quite a journey of non-editing free-flowing thought. More like an exercise of editing control. But it has certainly been an eye-opener.

Writer's Lag

Reviewing most of my NoBloMo posts, there are more than a few of them I'm quite proud of writing. Which is surprising, considering the amount of time I've spent in previous posts that I subject to "editing hell" for days before posting. Knowing that some of these posts are a stream of thought within one day proves to me that I don't have Writer's Block, but Writer's Lag; I just need to get my thoughts out, and hit "publish" as quickly as possible.

Well, not as quickly as possible, but at least before the day ends. The key is to leave little time for my brain to get in the way and revision my article to death. In the past, I've written lengthy posts, only to tear everything down because I decided to hate it all. There's nothing wrong with that, but to destroy what I originally wrote is being untrue with my past self. It's fine to disagree with yourself later, but post it as a separate post - don't revise your original thoughts.

Writing At The Moment

There are moments when you have an inner monologue, and you just want to capture that somehow. Rather than just thinking and forgetting it, it's best to just open a program and write it all out. Streams of thought are very important to capture because, like streams, they just keep flowing and flowing. With nothing to capture that, it'll quickly run past without you knowing.

I'm not going have a laptop at all times to capture all these moments, but the best ones you'll remember and, hopefully, you'll find a computer soon enough to get it all down.

Learning to Let Go

There will be still times when I want to get an article out right, and that's fine. The important thing, though, is to know when to say when; to know when it's good enough for you to allow other people to read. Because any article, no matter how good it is, won't matter if no one reads it.

There are SO many unfinished drafts from long ago. Some of them I completely forgot why I started them in the first place. And that's not something I like hanging over my head.

Changes From This Point On

Will this change anything in my blog? Maybe. I certainly won't be posting every day after NoBloMo, but I'll certainly never go through a month-long hiatus. I've always thought of my blog as a digital diary that's made public, and it was mostly just for me to go back and read what my thoughts were years ago. Any other audience this blog may attract is always secondary, and a bonus to me to whomever I share these with. But I'll certainly ramp up the frequency of posts...for myself, at least.