Date: 2023-03-18
I share my difficult relation with writing, and the pivot points in that relation, namely, participating in the WriteOn workshop and starting this blog. I make the case for why blogging can feel so liberating, and different from social media, encouraging you to start your own blog. If you do start a blog, I’d be honored if you’d share it with me. Still, the thing about blogging is that you don’t even have to share it with anyone.
Few people know this, but when I was little I had issues with fine-motor control and my handwriting sucked. As handwriting was how I wrote at the time, and (hand)writing took place on such joyful occasions as doing homework, or answering test questions, I can say I wasn’t a big fan of writing. This was compounded by the fact that I felt like my writing ability was far worse than my ability to speak in any setting, including the classroom. This trend then continued throughout my life.
I don’t recall exactly when, but the first major welcomed-change likely was the ability to submit computer-written assignments, regardless a lot of handwriting still took place… I continued to define myself as a speaker not a writer.
The second major change, at least the one I can recall, in my difficult relationship with writing came much later during my (still ongoing) PhD. My advisor, Sara Hagá started to host the WriteOn Workshop, a writing workshop developed by Barbara Sarnecka. I’ve written about that workshop, what it meant for me, and how it inspired RUGGED, in a previous post. Thus, I won’t go into much detail about the WriteOn workshop here. Instead, I’ll focus on how it changed my relationship with writing. The debate and discussion in the first sessions of the WriteOn workshop made come to the powerful realization that, whether I liked it or not, in most jobs you end up being a writer. This is abundantly clear in academia, particularly in an academia obsessed with counting publications, but I realized it was true for many other jobs. As long as you have to write emails, reports, fill out forms, submit proposals, you end up writing. Realizing writing was likely to be a big part of my job, even if I left academia, didn’t make me a better writer. Still, I feel (and hope) participating in the WriteOn workshop, learning from the feedback of my colleagues, and that of my advisor even outside the workshop, made me a better writer.
The third major change in my not-so-difficult-now relationship with writing came with this blog. I created it out of a whim. The impact it had on me was greater than I imagined. WriteOn taught me a lot about writing, particularly but not only, about scientific writing. It taught me that scientific writing doesn’t have to strive for unintelligibility of its message, or for maximizing the cognitive-strain of its readers. WriteOn taught me to rewrite sentences like the previous into something like: scientific writing doesn’t have to be dull, long-winded, or hard to understand. It also taught me to revise that into something more positive: WriteOn taught me that scientific writing can be sharp and engaging. Barbara Sarnecka would probably suggest to avoid using two adjectives. This might leave me saying that: WriteOn taught me that scientific writing can captivate the reader. As scientific writers we should avoid being pretentious and strive for clarity. But I digress… I just wanted to say that scientific writing doesn’t have to be dry, it can be engaging, but it still has a lot of rules (just count the pages in APA 7th style manual). Besides the style rules you also have to do your due diligence as a scholar, you have to cite your sources, ensure you’re painting an accurate picture of the literature, triple-check your analysis, discuss competing hypothesis/explanations, etc… This means scientific writing ends up being demanding, and often feels restrictive. Sometimes you just want to vent something, or you have an idea you want to share without having to write an entire paper about it. That’s when I find blogging can be a incredibly liberating experience (sorry for the double adjectives). Your blog can be your place to share your feelings, present your new ideas, or share someone else’s ideas that you find captivating.
If this blog had an audience, other than my dad and that one person who makes the mistake of clicking on a link in my LinkedIn post, I could point out that the youngest in my audience would say social media can do all I said a blog could do. I would suggest that blogging still feels differently. I know this feels like I’m just out of touch with the world today, I know I am, but I think that’s not the case here, hear (read) me out. When you post something on a social network it’s there, it’s on that network, it may appear into your friends' feeds, but it will appear next to any number of posts. Contrast that with your blog that features only your posts. Posting on your blog also means your post is just yours, you have all the control over it, and not part of someone else’s network. I’m afraid this doesn’t seem like an issue for most, so I’ll leave a discussion of our digital rights for later… Anyway, back to blogging vs. social media. Another major difference between blogging and social media is the length of posts. In social media you’re expected to make very short posts, or maybe apologize when you write a so called “wall of text”. In blogging your posts can be as short or as long as you wish, whether or not people will read them is another issue. Speaking of readers, social media is about engaging with an audience as a creator, and engaging with the creators and fellow audience members as a consumer. You can usually tell how many people saw your post, you see and reply to their comments, etc… Blogging doesn’t need to allow for any user engagement. You can write for yourself or for an audience, but you don’t have to obsess over how much they engage with it. If you want you can try and add comment sections and other forms of user engagement, but that’s up to you, and you usually have a greater control over of how those interactions take place. I believe this also contributes to blogging feeling so liberating.
I still don’t see myself as an amazing or prolific writer. I’m remain convinced I’m a better speaker than a writer. But I began to take pleasure in using writing to share my thoughts, and feelings. WriteOn had already taught me that writing can help clarify thinking, but as I mentioned if my only writing was scientific writing all thinking processes would be quite demanding. Blogging has helped me clarify other thoughts. Maybe one day I can try turning a few into scientific papers, but if that day comes, I’ll know they are already published on my blog, despite whatever reviews I get from a publisher.
If anyone is reading this is the part where I try to motivate you to write a blog. I don’t have more points to make in favor of blogging. Just think that if you find other forms of writing tiring, or if you find social media too restrictive or too stressful, start a blog. You don’t have to tell anyone… You may not even be able to tell how many people read it… But you’ll get to write in it! And maybe, just maybe, you’ll find it liberating! So, why don’t you give it a try?
If you do try out blogging, I would feel honored if you would share it with me. It’s blogging, you don’t have to share it with anyone, but you can share it with whomever you choose.
Thank you so much for reading!
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