I started blogging in 2013.
What started as a way to share ideas, evolved from a bit of fun on Blogger to an integral part of my marketing strategy to build my consultancy business.
Although, I admit, I’m a bit slack at monitoring the stats behind my marketing, I’m certain putting my writing out there regularly and sharing my knowledge and expertise is the main reason I’ve sold over 5,000 books.
When you have a blog, you never run out of things to say on social media.
In that time, I’ve learned so much about the art of blogging, enough to put in a book!
However, one of the biggest benefits for me from cultivating a regular blogging habit has been to improve my writing craft.
Voice and Tone
When you regularly write, you soon develop a style that works for you and your audience. You naturally use particular words and phrases, find a pace that is comfortable and develop effective ways to express yourself, in the same way as when you are communicating verbally with people who know you.
When writing comes more naturally, your authentic self shines through in those words.
Practice, practice, practice
Practice makes perfect, as they say (although I don’t believe in perfect; it’s a fallacy). As with anything, the more you do it the better you get. It takes years to learn any skill well. I’ve heard a statistic that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to be an expert in something.
It’s easy to look back on your early work and cringe, but take a positive lesson from this and remind yourself how far you’ve come. As you build up a library of content, look back and you’ll see a pattern of improvement.
Less is more
The mark of a good writer is to say a lot with few words. The more you write, the easier it is to write less.
Our early writing is often littered with over-description, extra words and too much information. Sometimes small changes can tighten your writing and give it more impact.
For example:
“She started walking”
Change the tense and it becomes:
“She walked”
We often use extra words for impact when, ironically, they give it less clout – words like ‘really’ and ‘very’.
For example:
“It was very good”
Choose a better adjective and remove the ‘very’ and it becomes:
“It was excellent”
Feedback
The only way to improve your writing is to get feedback.
Be open to constructive criticism and comments.
Unless you put your words out there you’ll never get that.
When I ask people for comments and criticism I ask then “What’s wrong with it?” Knowing that, gives me the opportunity to improve it. It can be tough to hear, but suck it up, in years to come, you’ll be glad of it!
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I’ve definitely seen a pattern of improvement since I started blogging. And you’re right: less is more. Happy writing 🙂
Thanks for commenting. I’m finding that most of my writing these days is for blogs – I need to get back on track with the next novel soon 🙂