One of the things that helps us in learning how to be better writers/bloggers (or in learning anything) is to just accept that we’ll suck at first, and there will be growing pains along the way.

Fortunately, if we stick with something for long enough and practice enough, we eventually get better. :) With blogging, though, seems like there’s a lot of folks who *don’t* stick with it, and the blogosphere is just left with a bunch of beginning attempts at blog writing, and this is what leads guys like Bruce Sterling to say that there is no quality writing in the blogosphere (totally untrue, of course).

I think that part of the reason why so many blogs are the same is that when a lot of people start blogging, they’re not sure what to do so they end up learning by watching blogs that have any type of following.

At least they are linking to the proper site. Nice to meet you Sharon :)

I know, I am grateful for that much! A pleasure to meet you as well, Jessica. :)

So, I’ve been doing some accidental ghost writing ;) for David Krug, a fictitious person named “Sarah Sarmiento” and now Raj Dash. Duncan, Thord and Muhammed, you guys are next!

Too funny. At least they are linking to the proper site. Nice to meet you Sharon :)

Jessica–thank you for noticing that I wrote the post :) . I should be getting used to it by now tho–with my first post I put up at 901am I started getting trackbacks that said “David Krug has a great post about productivity…” Then I graduated to “Sarah Sarmiento has a post at 901am…”

So, I’ve been doing some accidental ghost writing ;) for David Krug, a fictitious person named “Sarah Sarmiento” and now Raj Dash. Duncan, Thord and Muhammed, you guys are next!

Back to the topic of the post…Jessica, the thing you point out about adjusting the frequency of our writing is spot on. From the first day we start blogging, we’re in a constant metamorphosis. We grow into styles of writing, then outgrow those styles, then tweak our frequency until we find something that expresses our style better.

It is a constant developmental process, which is exciting. It’s not always a smooth ride, but if we stick with the writing/blogging and work things out when we’re bored, frustrated, or confused, then we’re constantly growing and becoming better bloggers.

As Raj and Jessica pointed out, the uplifting side is that the more we can be ourselves through out writing, the more memorable we are.

Finding ones voice online is one of the most introspective discoveries we as Bloggers make about ourselves. When we adjust the frequency ever so slightly within our writing, who knows what could happen and who could turn up reading our Blog(s).

I do write to someone or a group of someone’s. In between I write to myself or draw and paint to someone else.

Nice discussion Sharon and Raj. I enjoyed reading it.

That makes it so much easier to write if you have one or two people in mind, rather than trying to write for all of humanity.

Sometimes I’ve been inspired to write certain posts based on a conversation that I’ve had with someone, and I end up writing the post just for that person.

Surprisingly, most of the times I’ve done that, I get all sorts of people coming out of the woodwork saying that the post touched them personally. This makes sense. When we read something, we like to feel like it’s being written just for us, we don’t like to feel like we’re just part of an audience.

And although each of us is unique, we all have more in common than we realize. To write for one person in particular can make many people feel like we’re writing just for them.

Cool idea. I need to try it more often. :)

As for who to write for … one thing that Kurt Vonnegut and other writers have always said is to write for one person that you know would read you/listen to you. For me, depending on the topic and language, that’s often my grandmother or my brother or a select few other people. It seems that has worked for me for the most part.

Well, I’m glad someone liked the Alanis video! I found it yesterday and I couldn’t stop re-playing it! It’s just really a unique interpretation.

Yes, Alanis is someone who has worked to find her own voice and she’s incredibly distinctive. One of the things I noticed about blogging that kind of surprised me is that it’s really hard to get to the point where you have your own voice.

I struggled with that a lot myself, because my own blog is a blog that’s associated with my business, and I was sort of trying to tow the line between being professional and being the real me ;) .

In the end, I just got bored with trying to please other people. I got fed up and said “to hell with it–I have to write as if no one was reading”, and I started writing what pleased me.

I also found that Seth Godin quote, and it started to sink in with me that we are our most memorable when we do the opposite of what the readers expect. It’s really liberating when we realize that we don’t have to put the square pegs in the square holes that are put before us.

Not everyone wants to do that. Not everyone feels comfortable doing something different from everyone else. It makes you vulnerable and opens you to people laughing and pointing at you. I think that this is why many bloggers don’t really go out on a limb to find their true voice. It’s just too difficult sometimes.

Like you illustrated with Alanis, sometimes in order to find your voice you have to be willing for people not to like you. That’s a toughie, cuz we all want to be liked. The bright part is that the few people who do end up liking us actually respect us as well, because we took the chance to be different.

Oh, and I too love travel and food blogs. One of my faves is My Marrakesh http://www.moroccanmaryam.typepad.com/. It’s just good storytelling. And I love a post that starts out, “I am on the Nile in a feluka, the Egyptian sailboat…”