To people who are starting with blogging.
2. We actually don't need others giving us feedback SO much. Little was ok, but you're growing up in a time when this stuff has gone depressingly out of balance. So we need to learn to inculcate a slight, healthy disrespect for the opinions of others, to counteract the imbalance that we have today.
3. There is no hierarchy of subjects. A love story or some courage story or something soccer related are as great, as important, as valuable as any social issue commentary. In fact, stories are instrumental in scripting the future : they visualize imagination, bring it to life, and inspire others to act on their imagination. And speaking of stories, check this out : http://nikhilsheth.blogspot.in/2013/01/eklavya-20.html That's ONE story I came up with after being exposed to social commentaries on caste injustices, etc, and it's something that I keep returning to time and again to remind myself of things. It's my personal favorite work. I haven't bothered trying to make stories after that as that kind of stuff just wasn't happening with me. If you have stories flowing out of you then I really envy you!
4. Writing is actually very much like Eklavya's arrow shooting learning. He didn't really need others to tell him that his arrow has not hit the target. Itna toh saaf saaf dikh jaata hai. After writing your stuff, go away for some days, then come back and see the published thing (yes, it is important to see it actually published rather than in draft form) with a new set of eyes. Read your own article from start to finish, and if my guess is right, I think you will feel like this has been written by someone else. That is because : 1. We are constantly changing, and 2. Our thoughts aren't really coming from inside our brains. But that's a topic for more eccentric research later.
5. Carrying on from last lines of previous point, this realization has brought out to me the flaws in our university Literature etc courses where there is so much unnecessary dissection of writers and attempts to make connections and draw conclusions on what the guy's personality was and basicaly judging people in such abstract unrealistic ways. Everybody is ever-changing yaar. No need to fixate.
6. Check out https://storyweaver.org.in
1. Only write what is coming from your heart. Don't care about what others will think, at least at the creation stage and in over the intial couple of years. Then after posting, reading it yourself (explained further in point 4), receiving feedback through comments, your friends telling you personally, will automatically lead to the improvement you wish for. So focus on a post-feedback model instead of a pre-feedback model. ie, put it out there first, take feedback later. At least that's the way I managed.
2. We actually don't need others giving us feedback SO much. Little was ok, but you're growing up in a time when this stuff has gone depressingly out of balance. So we need to learn to inculcate a slight, healthy disrespect for the opinions of others, to counteract the imbalance that we have today.
5. Carrying on from last lines of previous point, this realization has brought out to me the flaws in our university Literature etc courses where there is so much unnecessary dissection of writers and attempts to make connections and draw conclusions on what the guy's personality was and basicaly judging people in such abstract unrealistic ways. Everybody is ever-changing yaar. No need to fixate.
6. Check out https://storyweaver.org.in
7. Now this is a difficult one even for me : Don't delete the posts that you later feel unhappy with. Instead, write it afresh and post it as v2, v3 etc. If possible, cross-link between them. If you feel really embarrased with one work, be open about it and publish that you're not happy with the earlier version. This will give everyone a chance to witness your journey in writing. Kind of like in wikipedia when we go into seeing the page's history and see how it evolved over time. All that said, there will always be stuff that needs to be deleted so proceed and use the deleting power of digital publishing.
8. Technical tip : I always blog by email-posting : it's sooo convenient. And this way I can simply forward excerpts from ongoing email conversations that I want to post to blog, or emails I'm sending. You can configure a secret email address in your blog's settings, save it in your contacts list on gmail (just send to it once). Note: if you're having a phone number or direct email address in the email's signature or content, remember to remove it before sending to blog. (You know what, after I send this to you I'm going to edit and forward this to my blog as well, with name and all redacted of course)
9. Put the link to your blog in your email's signature (ie, don't write it in everytime.. go to your email settings and write out a full fledged signature, so that it automatically comes at the end of all your emails. Got a quote you love? Write that over there as well!). And similarly link to your blog on your social media profile etc.
1 comment:
This is gonna be really helpful for me.
Thanks a lot 😀
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