What is a ‘better’ writer?

I’m sure, after so many years of writing on a blog, it might seem funny that I would ask a question like this.  Don’t misunderstand, I love the act of writing, and I wouldn’t be where I am today without my writing, be it books or other media.  The same can not be true about what I think of blogging.  It’s fear of success, and my fear of being outside my comfort zone.  I am a creature of habit, and I don’t exactly like change.  I publish a blog post because I should.

Except that makes me a rather miserable writer if there ever was one.

It’s not that I can’t. It’s that I won’t.

That isn’t making me a better writer, and telling people I’m not into it, also might not help someone else with their own writing, or their own challenges.  To admit failure isn’t always a good thing, but to admit success?

You’re as good as your writing.  Looking back I let myself be ‘a writer to whom everything was okay.’  A better writer is someone who can look at their writing, and anyone else’s and know, and communicate what must be better to have a great bit of writing.  I grasp that grammar is important, and I grasp that how a post comes alive is needed to retain the audience, but I don’t understand it intuitively.  It’s the part where what I write is more ‘word vomit’ than anything else.

What is a better writer?  In this regard it is anyone who is will to go and improve more on their craft, and who is willing to take small, daily steps in creating this improvement.

What is a better writer?  Someone who no matter how afraid they are is still willing to learn and to slowly grow, small steps and bigger changes over time.  It’s not a overnight success to a better writer rather it’s a goal, and setting up a plan and keeping at it, excuses and various reasons not withstanding,

What is a better blogger?

In this case, to be a better blogger, it is committing to writing something on a regular basis.  Some blogs need to be updated once a day some, once a week.  A blogger should know how often they need to do this, and they should want to prepare their readers for a regular update on a regular day.

They should commit to having a certain ‘word count.’ They should also intend to have time to double check how the blog comes across, if it’s in english have someone who understands english grammar look it over. The same holds true with other languages, it’s the communication which makes or breaks a blog post.

A better blogger not only grabs and understands this, but K-N-O-W-S this and doesn’t have a reason to not research and rebuild a blog each day- besides it’s a lot more of a challenge to push yourself than to not.  There are many bloggers (myself included) to whom a life less ordinary was the goal for our blogs.

A better blogger, and writer, know that this goal is one of the worst, for one thing it’s not a smart goal, it’s an idea, or a dream.  The truth is that there is no plan, and there is no goal.  What is less ordinary for me is not the same for you.

It’s the same as becoming a better writer.  There are reasons and then there are excuses. Reasons can be varied but they don’t come up every day.  Yes, a family member is sick, and you need to care for them, is a reason but you, like everyone else has 24 hours in a day, and a bit of planning makes all the difference.  It’s true with bloggers, and it’s true with writers the more you plan the better it becomes.