Blogging Improves Writing? My Secret

Blogging improves writing, right? Practice makes perfect and all that stuff?

Blogging DOES improve writing, writing is a critical business skill, but practice DOES NOT make perfect.

Although blogging has greatly improved my writing, I'd still be making a great many of the same writing errors I was two years ago if I relied on only blogging to improve writing skills.  But there is something that combined with blogging has improved my writing even more.

What? Simple: Getting others to review my writing occasionally. We are talking an almost formal review like when you wrote papers in school.

I've had three people look at maybe 3-5 blog posts each and the results have been great. Here's what I've learned:

From my retired school teacher motherinlaw: Pay attention to details, including details I never imagined. They matter, although I refuse to obsess over them (sorry Mimi, I don't always listen!). After all, a great shirt with a small black spot on it is still a dirty shirt!

From my wife Margaret: My writing is flabby! Remove as many words as possible without changing the fundamental feeling. Extra words distract and hinder your message.

From my friend Large John: Ignore everyone and just write like yourself. You can't write like John Irving or (fill in the blank) and they can't write like you. Your writing needs to reflect your personality, and when done right it will. Unlike me, John is a great writer and his top writing tips appear in my book.

A fundamental rule of writing, universally ignored in blogging, is "Never edit your own writing." In blogging, lets just say, "Sometimes don't edit your own writing – you need other's input and perspectives." It won't happen unless you ask!

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Guest Blogger, Ted Demopoulos, blogs at The Ted Rap and is author of What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging and Podcasting.

Comments

[NakedNick]

Practice does not make perfect. PERFECT practice makes perfect. This applies to writing, playing the piano, or baking pies.

Anyone can go through the steps and motions. It isn't until the steps are practiced perfectly that the practice is perfect.

As Isadora Duncan said, "Through technique, there is freedom"

[T Demop, Blogging for Business]

Hi NakedNick,

Great analogies.

I can play the piano -- sort of. Playing alone only leads to limited improvements at best. When I have external help and feedback -- like lessons, playing with others, etc., my practicing "improves" and my playing does get better.

[Nathalie]

What you wrote has made me think about what "writing" meant...

From my point of view, there are three points that participate in a good writing:

1. the style: in business blogging, you don't need to have the style of a higly famous writer (Nota Bene: I don't like Jogn Irving' style, it's boring for me)
In the blogosphere, there are a lot of young people who are writing as they're chatting. No style! You must respect the grammar rules as well.

2. the structure, the way you present your thinking, your ideas. Less structure makes more weak, out of focus and difficult to understand what is written

3. the content (the ideas, the thinking it self). Is what you're writting very interesting? innovative? appealing?

So, even if you follow the piece of advice of Mimi, Margaret or Large John, but your ideas are poor, ordinary and your writing is unstructured, I think that your career as a writer is jeopardized!

[T Demop, Blogging for Business]

Hi Nathalie,
Absolutely - you need good ideas, which to me often means ideas I can use or that make me think. Writers I find compelling usually have both!

[Meikah Delid]

Interesting post! As a blogger myself, I always try to edit what I write, and yeah, sometimes it hinders the flow of my ideas. Blogs are supposed to be conversations online. But then again, I don't want to read a misplaced or dangling modifier somewhere, or read around (<-- this phrase needs editing, I know; but I like the sound of the redundancy there..lol) in circles. :-D

[T Demop, Blogging for Business]

Meikah,
Well put. We are having conversations, but any form of writing is somewhat more formal than speaking out loud, if for nothing else than it permanence.

Also, if we speak less than perfectly, use confusing grammar, wrong words, etc., there are many cues such as intonation, and inflection to help with our meaning that our missing in writing.