The purpose of blogging, structure and creativity
I often wonder why other people write in blogs.
Blogging, to me, is a creative exercise. Many others who blog seem to be intent on furthering their careers, making money, or self-promotion. Still more pursue blogs that seem completely random, or detail the minutiae of lives that seem uninteresting. Perhaps this last group is also pursuing a creative exercise of their own.
The middle groups — particularly those looking for money — I do not quite understanding. I cannot fathom a means by which the Big Bad Blog could be profitable at all, never mind a true income generator of some sort. Often purpose-driven blogs follow some sort of blogging code, a set of rules which (it is claimed) guarantee success, or greatness, or something. Paint-by-numbers blogging.
Part of me wonders how this can work. Another part of me is amazed as the random, boring, and potentially creative last group of bloggers often follow many of these same rules. I imagine them thinking to themselves: I love to blog. I must follow the blogger’s code.
Like most people, I enjoy being creative. Writing, photography, drawing, singing, playing guitar — these are all things I enjoy. They are also all things I do too little of, which comes down entirely to inertia. Like most people, I simply find it easier not to do these things, despite the fact that I clearly love doing them. I find it easier to passively consume television shows, books, websites, movies and music that is created by others.
I have always enjoyed writing, but until the Big Bad Blog came along it went nowhere.
As a child, I would start to write stories. Unless they were for school, they would never reach completion.
As a teenager, I would write songs. Ad nauseum. These had a driving source: I was in a band, and we needed songs. So I would write, practice guitar, and sing into a microphone. Whether it was scheduled jamming sessions, peer pressure, or an attempt to keep up with my more-talented band mates, I felt pushed to work towards my creative endeavours on a regular basis.
When I hit University, these things stopped happening. There was nothing pushing me to write more songs, or to practice guitar. Habits don’t die overnight, but the frequency at which I engaged the creative parts of my brain continually diminished until reaching zero.
Creativity does not function well in a vacuum. It is amazing how having a schedule or holding the belief that others might be waiting for or expecting your creative output can get one’s creative juices flowing. Having limitless options might work for the geniuses amongst us — but many people, myself included, turn out much better art within boundaries, artificial or otherwise.
Is there a deadline? Narrow restrictions within which I must work? A subject? Must it be commercially viable? All these things create better art, even if they are not properly adhered to — breaking rules is an important part of art, but one that requires that those rules exist in the first place.
Searching the Internet, one can find plenty of rules that bloggers are supposed to adhere to. I chafe when I see these rules — not because they exist, but because I am convinced the writers believe that those rules should apply to me. They are supposed to be Generic Rules of Blogging.
The only rule to blogging, however, should be to have rules. What they are is up to you.
(Image found at Book of Joe)
In the news this morning, from the Globe and Mail, a look at the evolution of how mobile technology (Blackberries, iPhones, and such) are used in crisis: 
As you may have noticed, every morning I endeavour to include a small handful of things within the