Stephen King’s book “On Writing” is one of my favorite pieces on the craft that I’ve read. Not because it’s the best book on the subject, or because he’s come up with some new approach to the art that no one else has, or that he is able to distill his talent down into words and give you a formula for success. To me, it was because it spoke to me the way I needed to be spoken to at the time. There were two basic rules (and I’m paraphrasing horribly here, and you should really read the book if you’re curious about what he has to say, because I’m sure to mangle it just a bit). The two basic rules are 1. Write, no matter what it’s about, and just make sure you do it regularly. And, 2. A good writer is also a good reader. You just can’t gain perspective or see how other people find success with words without consuming them yourself.
For the last year or so, I’ve poured myself pretty heavily into my hockey website. I’m very proud of it and what’s become, and it’s allowed me to interact with the sport I love in a way I’ve missed since my days with the newspaper. So, I’m really glad for the opportunities there. But, it doesn’t allow me to express myself creatively very often. In addition to the website, I’ve also written pretty heavily on Twitter and Facebook. Both of these products are a great way to express my thoughts and insights, and share interesting web things. But, they also tend to take away material for blog posts.
So, after trying to figure out how to reconcile the two, and still find material for blogging without resorting to e-mail prompts with suggestions about what to write about, I’ve gone back to the first of King’s rules I listed above – just write. I’ll give that a shot and see where it leads me. If you follow me on twitter and/or facebook, and find some of the stuff I put in here repetitive…well, sorry. That’s just how it may be from time to time. But, I will do my best to keep plenty of material (thoughts/stories/etc.) for here that I don’t post in other places – after all – it’s hard to truly tell a story on Twitter or Facebook.
