Blogging Routine

Lately I've been keeping a regular blogging schedule. There's several reasons why I do this:

First, it's because I love to write. Honestly, self-publishing has this instant gratification, especially when you have an audience. Blogging is merely the result of my writing rather than say, a desire to acquire income through blogging (which is why the site is ad free!).

Second, it's to exercise my writing muscles. Okay, my goal is to be a fiction writer (although I do have secondary goals or breaking into other writing markets, hint hint!) and while blogging isn't fiction writing (because I post little fiction in my blog), it is writing nonetheless (and I do write a variety of material here such as reviews, essays, and pseudo press releases). Blogging forces me to use those writing muscles and more importantly, to keep a writing schedule. That's why I have posts Monday through Fridays. The specific commitments isn't as important as the fact that I have a commitment to writing on some level.

Third, it's to get better. Honestly, I write a lot of crap or less-than-optimal documents. Sometimes, the only way you'll realize this is when you seen them in print. Right now, I'm spotting some weak spots when it comes to my book reviews and manga reviews so there's room for improvement there. As for my other blogging segments, it's always improving (take a look at my tabletop podcast coverage: my first coverage last August and my latest one this month). The improvement isn't necessarily by leaps and bounds but at least there's improvement, even if they're baby steps.

Fourth, it's my way of giving back to the community. For the most part, I'd like to think that most of my entries are doing a service or informative in some way. I mean I hope my "emo" posts are few and what dominates the most are blog entries which other people find useful. At the very least, if I don't succeed as a fiction writer, I can always be a reporter or columnist or blogger (but honestly I prefer to create content rather than just talk about 'em).