Can blogging actually harm your writing?

One of the things I always advise would-be writers to do is to start a blog: it’s a great way of getting into the habit of regular writing, and with writing, like any talent, practice makes perfect – so the more you do it, the better you get. But am I right? Or can blogging actually damage your writing, and stall your ambitions?

I think that one of the biggest myths about writing is that it’s all the same thing: that if you can write short stories, you can write a novel (or vice versa); that it’s just one basic skill that works across all media. While there is, of course, a degree of transferability  – if you’re a decent writer, you’re not suddenly going to lose the ability to string together a sentence if you decide to switch from business writing to blogging, or playwriting to penning a novel. There are plenty of examples where writers have ability across a range of fields – but just as many where they don’t. Talent in one area doesn’t necessarily equate to skill in another. Some of my most beloved novelists write terrible short stories, because they simply can’t contain a plot in a few thousand words; one of my favourite non-fiction writers is now publishes historical novels that are so bad they make me want to stick things in my eyes.

In part this is because we read different materials differently: for example, if you’re writing online material, you need to ‘front load’ your piece more (people may not even see more than the first paragraph, and they have less patience if you’re obscure in your opening text). While a killer opener is important for a book (or play, or short story), readers tend to be more patient – they are willing to enjoy a slow burn, to let you layer information and to take a longer route to where you’re going. With blogging, too, there is a tendency to accept a certain lack of polish: you often write quickly, and post without much re-editing, while longer prose often requires a willingness to edit, and re-edit , and to be brutal with yourself over what you keep in and what you lose.

The other issue with blogging is that you can end up running to stand still: you write and write and write without ever actually ending up with an end product you can use. I’m not saying there’s no benefit to blogging for the sake of it – I do that myself, it’s enormously enjoyable – and some blogs, depending on style and topic, can actually add up to a cohesive whole. I’m also not a snob about it – I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being ‘just’ a blogger (and there are plenty of people who are very successful at this – it’s nothing to be snippy about). But it’s also tempting to tell yourself you’re moving forward in your goal to write a book, when all you’re doing is creating content for a blog.

Given all that – it’s still advice I’d stand by. Blogging is fun, it’s a great way of connecting with people (and helping build a ready-made audience if you do eventually publish a book), and getting into the habit of regular writing is a discipline that will serve you well. But as with so many other aspects of being a writer, the trick is being honest with yourself: if you’re using it as an excuse to procrastinate or put off a ‘proper’ project, then it’s not doing you any favours, and you may be better going offline.  

Hobbies and Interests: (please use a separate sheet if necessary)

The main reason I never replied to the question “what do you like doing” with the only truthful answer of “I like to write” was because I was petrified that I’d either get laughed at for sounding like a deluded fool or ignored for being… well, much the same thing I guess.

Not me and mum (but the expression's spot-on)

Because everyone else had such sensible, normal, achievable interests. Other people liked to abseil, water-ski, sky-dive, garden, paint, cross-stitch, ramble, cook, even socialise was high on the list of ‘interests’. They could even produce photographic evidence to prove they could DO these things. And I simply couldn’t imagine a scenario in which I’d want to do any of them  - unless "socialising" was the same thing as bumping into somebody I vaguely knew in Sainsbury’s and chatting about the weather for five minutes.

In a bid to try and fit in when I was growing up, I tried collecting stamps. My dad collected First Day covers so I thought this might endear me to him, help us bond; give us something a bit more in common than just DNA. After all, my parents insisted I had to have a hobby - that I should do something constructive with my time when I didn’t have my face in a book. That’s right, in our house in the seventies, reading was not considered a pastime – a ‘waste of time’, yes, but it wasn't a "proper" hobby. “Always got your nose buried in a book” they'd scowl… like it was a Bad Thing. No wonder I grew up confused.

However, after about 6 months of saving up my pocket money to buy little packets of stamps from countries I’d never been to; never particularly aspired to visit and half I’d never even heard of, I decided this was not making me happy. Although I was frightened to say so because Being Happy in our house was not an Option and when it was noticed I'd stopped,  I was given a lecture on how I always started something but never saw it through and how I’d never amount to anything with an attitude like that.

*sigh*

My brother collected milk bottles. That’s right, milk BOTTLES. No, not tops to send off to Blue Peter for a worthy cause ( THAT would’ve made too much sense) - he collected the actual bottles. Okay, in his defence they were the ones with bright, shouty advertising slogans on them that enjoyed a small rush of ‘fashion’ in the seventies, his most coveted being the ‘Beanz Meanz Heinz’ bottle. As far as I recall they sat and gathered dust on the top of his wardrobe for decades as he was convinced they would make his fortune one day. They didn't.

I tried to join my mother knitting but couldn’t get the hang of it. I couldn’t also see the point of it, quite honestly. And I secretly resented it because of the hand-knitted school jumpers my brother and I wore which stood out like pulsating sore thumbs against the shop-bought, machine-woven perfection that were our peers'. Even my attempts at knitting a Dr Who scarf which everyone seemed to think was a cool thing to do at school, ended up looking more like a distressed snake because I’d dropped so many stitches en route, it just tapered off into a lone straggle. I gave it to my best friend who was a Sci-Fi fanatic and it ended up in his cat’s basket.

A spate of Airfix modelling was no better. I quite liked sitting at the table with my dad of an evening with a tube of glue and a saucer of water in which floated little sheets of transfer papers. But this bored me too - after all, the creation wasn’t mine. And my dad nearly had a small fit when I declared a desire to paint Anne Boleyn’s dress a different colour than the box recommended – as though the Airfix Police would have us surrounded if I’d so much as breathed the suggestion louder!

*slightly heavier sigh*

And after all of this, I’d retreat, disconsolate, to my bedroom and write about how crappy my day had been; how I still hadn’t managed to ingratiate myself into the familial fold and how much crappier I thoroughly believed tomorrow would be. Reams and reams of it. And then I’d feel better. I’d read it back and think ‘poor girl, look what she has to put up with’ and then start to imagine how she could possibly be rescued from such tragic circumstances.

Looking back I’m firmly of the opinion that I was in writing denial. I tried everything I could think of NOT to enjoy writing, but every day I wrote. At the time I thought  that my scribblings were just a general bemoaning of My Lot in Life - for when the dog was too busy to listen to me and a sheet of paper would do just as well, if not better.  But now I’m a grown-up I can see that this is what made me happy.  What DOES make me happy; I can decide for myself how I want to spend any time I have now, and I’ll spend it writing, thank you very much.

Sitting Tight

Here is a place I haven't been before.
Actually Prague is also a place I haven't been before but this isn't about Prague.  Or anywhere else.  This is about a place called Here.  Or Now. Or Here-and-Now.  They're probably twinned or something.

I never really took my writing 'seriously' until just after my Mum died.  My marriage died at the same time and I wasn't sure how to grieve or which to grieve for first.  I got very confused, a little lost and what with finding myself a single mother all of a sudden and having to try and prop up self, daughter and father, I turned to the only thing I ever found comfort in and that was writing.  Getting it all out of my spaghetti-brain and onto a piece of paper/screen was the only thing that made any real sense.
 
Then I joined WriteWords.  I was thrilled  to find other people who loved to write and loved to talk about writing and I was delighted when they started telling me how much they enjoyed reading  stuff I'd written. I can still remember the real sick-fear of clicking the 'upload' icon when I posted the first chapter of the book I was writing.  And the very bad sleep I got that night and the trepidation I felt before logging back in to see if anyone had said anything.  Followed by pure elation when I read the comments - a feeling I shall never forget.
It was how I would imagine it feels on those Makeover programmes when you've spent most of your life feeling a bit left out and a bit lonely and suddenly you're coming down those steps and there's a whole load of clapping, cheering people greeting you and telling you how lovely you are.  That's how it felt.  And I wanted them to be my friends forever.
I still do.

And if it hadn't been for this amazing writing group that I found myself a part of, then I'd never have dreamed of even thinking anything I wrote was worthy of anything like proper publication - in a book with a cover and everything.  But this seemed to be the way to go.  After all, I'd had a couple of shorts published and a poem or two... heck I even won a load of Mills & Boons and a pink telephone in a BT/M&B scriptwriting competition, so I must have had 'something' going for me.

So publication it was, then.  Not exactly Publication or Die.  But pretty near, it's sometimes felt.

And Now.  Here I am.  Waiting.  Oh, so patiently.  Four books later and nearly a decade later, I've been having some very encouraging correspondence from one particular Agent concerning the Teenage book I've written.  And even though it's been on a super-massive rewrite journey, had three different endings and enough 'darlings' killed off that it could start it's own Am-Dram society, I still love working on it.  Last week she mailed me to say she'd "love to read anything I've written" - which has given me a renewed writing energy I always knew was lurking about somewhere.  I just needed the encouragement to let it shine. So now she has the final version.  And some chapters of another YA book I'm halfway through.  And ideas for three other books that are being all patient at the back of my head and waiting for their 'time' to come.

I'm very good at sitting tight and waiting.  Especially if what's coming is worth the wait.  And even if it isn't what I hoped for, I know that right now I'm Somewhere I've never been before.  I got this far.
I'm Here.

Is it worth it?

It's funny how the idea for a blog post develops. Last time I mentioned how, if I were an agent, I might bin a submission because the writer had the same name as an ex-boyfriend. So that got me thinking about crappy ex-boyfriends, and that made me remember the time one of them informed me “you just haven't got the guts and determination to become a professional actress.”

This pronouncement could have been hideously wounding. In fact, it probably would have been, if I'd ever harboured the remotest desire to be a professional actress.

I quite liked amateur dramatics. I'd go in for one or two plays a year, and even “starred” in a soap opera on the university radio station. But that was about it. I had no hankering after Hollywood or the RSC. Neither have plenty of other people involved with theatre clubs. To most outside observers (dickweed boyfriends excepted) am-dram is an acceptable hobby, both for those who are brilliant at it and those who, frankly, aren't.

The same doesn't seem to be true of writing. The moment you blushingly admit that you enjoy penning the occasional short story ... or worse, that you're a member of a writers' group ... or far, far worse, that you've got the nerve to be working on a novel, it's pressure time:

So, have you had anything published?

Oh. Well, d'you think you'll try and get published?

So, you're going to be the next J.K. Rowling, eh?

Mind you, it's very difficult to be a writer, love. You have to be really good to get published. Don't get your hopes up, will you?

It's all right to take part in a local panto without everyone thinking you fancy yourself as Nicole Kidman. You can sing along to Abba in the car, and people don't start smirking about how you haven't got a record deal. You can enjoy a round of golf without anyone adopting a serious expression and saying “What makes you think you're as good as Tiger Woods?”

Writing is different. Increasingly, there's a sense that it's not an interest but an ambition; something not worth doing unless publication – and preferably mega-deal publication with a major publisher – is within reach. Both on and offline, I'm noticing more and more people saying they'd like to have a go at writing, but they're not sure if there is much point when there's no guarantee of success.

Arguably some of those people don't really want to write, in which case, fine – there's no law that says they have to. To the genuine but uncertain ones, however, I say it is worth trying – very much worth trying – for its own sake, not because of what the future might hold.

If writing proves a source of strange inner excitement, if it plunges you into a different existence, if your characters become more real than the shop customers or office boss you have to deal with every day, then it's worth doing. If it makes you look at the red clock-numbers at 3:56am and smile because there are still two whole hours of thinking-time left, if it makes you look forward to getting back to it, if it's the only chance you've ever had to create something that no one else can control, then it's worth the effort. If it makes you feel as though you've said something, when everyone always thought you had nothing to say, then yes, it's worth it. And, even though it would be more highbrow of me to lament that writing is agony, actually, a lot of the time it's very good fun.

So, to any potential new writers who have stumbled on this blog looking for info on whether there's any point: yes there is! Give it a try. Don't be deterred just because someone (a dur-brained soon-to-be-ex, for example) has made you feel that anything short of JKR fame isn't good enough.

(Thank you to Adam Ciesielski for the photo.)