Previously in this series: The Idea Jar
A Room to Call My Own
I used to have this dream. One day I would have a special room, a creative laboratory of sorts, a place to call my own.
On one wall, there would be shelves lined with books to read, movies to watch, and music to listen to. Against the opposite wall would be a very long table adorned with audio and video equipment, pads of paper, cups full of pencils and pens and paint brushes, and perhaps a computer or two. And the third wall would be a mix of easel and bulletin board, a surface on which I could draw or paint or hang up things of interest.
Whenever I needed, I could go there. I could read there and write there. I could scheme there and plan there. I could create and produce there. But most of all I could simply be there, free to explore without any guilt my thoughts and dreams and interests.
As nice as that still sounds, it never came to be. What came instead was blogging. It might be just as well.
Blogging the Possible
Blogging, much to my surprise, has become my favorite means for collecting thoughts, exploring interests, and cultivating curiosity and creativity, because a blog is kind of like a sketch pad on steroids.
A blog provides you with an almost instant way to categorize and organize your interests. It allows you to mix and match words, images, and sounds. And should you choose to make it public, it enables you to connect, interact, and collaborate with others.
But in order for a blog to become a source of fun, discovery, and inspiration, you have to let it. You have to blog guilt free.
A Blog You Can’t Mess Up
Today, I’m asking you to consider creating a Guilt Free Blog, the kind of blog you can’t screw up. It doesn’t have to earn you any money. It doesn’t have to attract a huge following (or any following). It doesn’t have to rank high in the search engines. It doesn’t have to be well written or pretty or user friendly. It doesn’t even have to be about anything. All it has to be is yours, without apology.
Screw finding a niche, skip the SEO, and if neither of those things mean anything to you, forget I even mentioned them.
It doesn’t matter if you’ve never blogged before. It’s easier than you think, and there are dozens of resources for teaching you the basics.
It doesn’t matter if you’ve been blogging for years. A Guilt Free Blog might still be something new to you.
While some blogs are created to promote a business (or be one) or serve a specific audience by covering a specific topic, a Guilt Free Blog is created for a different purpose: to explore the possible.
A Blog to Call Your Own
On a Guilt Free Blog, you can create as many categories and subcategories as your little heart desires. You can write and post your poems, stories, essays, and articles – even the ones that suck.
You can post your notes, lists, ramblings, and questions.
You can upload your photos, drawings, and homemade movies.
You can record and embed that song you wrote one Thursday evening while playing around on the piano.
To Be Seen or Not to Be Seen
And, best of all, you get to choose what you’re going to let others see. Most blogging software enables to you decide on a post-by-post basis whether to make a post public or keep it private. It’s always your call.
Set Your Own Pace
It’s also your call (and I mean completely your call) how often you post. Otherwise, it’s no longer a Guilt Free Blog. You can post once a day, ten times a day, three times a week, or once a month. You can post in spurts, blogging like a mad man one week and refusing to touch the keyboard the next. You can let the thing go idle for a month or two or nine, then rev it up again one day when you get the urge.
Follow That Blog
The point is to let your Guilt Free Blog become whatever it will become, follow it wherever it takes you, and discover whatever it reveals.
Someday, you may decide, if you haven’t already, to create a blog for another purpose. But for this purpose, your purpose, I think you’ll want your first blog, your next blog, and maybe your only blog to be a Guilt Free Blog, a place to call your own.
These Posts are Not My Own
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Next in the series: Where All Your Thoughts are Leading
{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
Love this. I started a blog a couple of months ago that pretty is just for me (although I do have my business nicely displayed in the right column). I haven’t written much, but I do write about things I am thinking about or dealing with at the time. However, I have narrowed my focus to parenting and organizational issues. I think I’m gonna do what you suggest and beef it up with a greater sampling of my thoughts, ideas, etc. Great idea. Thanks for sharing.
Hi, Lisa.
The beauty of a Guilt Free Blog is that you can make it as broad or narrow as you choose. If you’re interested in only one thing, so be it. If you’re interested in four dozen, so be it. Just follow the interests wherever they lead.
This is a BRILLIANT idea. I think if someone does this, with great passion and heart and is just “guilt free” I think amazing things may happen.
Great post!
Dayne
.-= Dayne | TheHappySelf.com´s last blog ..Face to Face With God : A Near Death Experience =-.
Hey, Dayne.
The funny thing about this? I think this is what blogs were originally meant to be.
It’s awesome that they can be such great tools for reaching a targeted audience, but I wanted to remind people they can still be used for this purpose as well.
Fantastic.
That’s definitely something I’ve been missing lately – the feeling that there’s somewhere to go and just play with no one judging (including myself). What an easy and elegant solution.
.-= Charlotte´s last blog ..How NOT to SEO. (In which I receive a crappy pitch from a John.) =-.
A blog’s a great tool for this, but like I said, you have to let it be that. That’s not always easy.
Great post! Great idea! I have a blog that, unfortunately, I’m always writing with an eye to someone else reading it. Cramps my style just a tad. I will have to look and see how to adjust my settings, if I can, to still be able to publish a post but only make it public if, when I feel like it. So that frees me up to an extent, but there still is that damn internal panel of blog readers who are obnoxiously mouthy and opiniated. I guess I just need to figure out someway to keep their mouths shut since I’ve as yet to figure out how to get them to leave.
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This was helpful, thanks.
I have one of those panels too. I usually provide the members with some music to listen to.
Good idea!!
.-= Helen´s last blog ..Going out on a limb…or not =-.
Ken, I love this. I like your approach to creativity so much. I am one of those people who has squelched many creative urges because I didn’t think my work (play) was good enough. We all start somewhere, and the direction may not be what we imagined. Thanks for promoting this ethic: get it out there, refine, and GO!
Beth
Thanks, Beth.
Make it. Then make it better. That’s the best you can ever do.
I have a blog, Ken, and I’m learning to make it guilt-free. I still worry about readers and promoting myself and my business. But I keep reminding myself how much fun it is to write what I want and share it. That’s the trick: Think FUN!
Hi Ken,
I’m just going to start my blog and I have a lot of themes and things that I want to talk about and show in my blog – and as a person with a certain sense of perfectionism your post is like medicine for my soul
thanks for sharing – and for being so uncomplicated creative -
Heya Ken, glad I came across this ‘old’ post of yours today. I’ve been a bit stuck with my own blogging. It started just as you mention, but then along the way, I started getting into different communities and I wanted my blog to contribute to those communities.
Unfortunately, this created a mindset in me where if I didn’t have something interesting to say to those communities, then I didn’t blog. Then I had a fellow blogger mention that you should never appear ‘weak’ or ‘whiny’ on your blog and soon my blogging went from intermittent to hardly ever at all. My blog ceased to be my place of self-expression.
But now I’m thinking of repatterning my blog experience into something closer to what you say here – an artist’s online notebook.
Thank you!
.-= Bec´s last blog ..On Literary Diversity =-.
Have fun, Bec.
I constantly find myself having to ward off Rigid Rule Syndrome, but I think I’m getting better at it.
Rigid Rule Syndrome?
Please tell me you’ve written about this. I’m definitely struggling with RRS having recently discovered that when Goals become Rules Bad Things Happen.