Before this class I haven't had much of an opinion on blogs. I was aware of what blogs were, and I understood that they are more social than other forms of writing because the majority of public discourse takes place on the internet. I was also aware that many talented writers used blogging as their method of writing because of the ease and accessibility of it. The fact that anyone can publish something via the internet allows for a lot of good writing to be read that wouldn't normally have. The fact that anyone and everyone can have a blog is obviously good for that reason, and it's something that I hadn't considered prior to creating mine.
While creating my blog I had really only one strategy in mind: I wanted it to be personalized and unique without it feeling like more time was put into the customized layout than the actual post. I'd like to think that I'm a person who values fuction over form so I wanted my blog to represent that. Thus I chose a simple blue/gray format that, while pretty spartan, still manages to be somewhat aesthetically pleasing in a minimalistic kind of way.
I’ve never had a blog before. In fact, I’ve never really shared my writing before. This isn’t because I’m shy or convinced that my writing is terrible; I just never really believed that anyone would care to read my thoughts. But now that I’m in a class where my writing can and will be seen by my peers my sense of what writing means to me has changed a little. For me, writing is usually a mostly private endeavor usually just involving a teacher reading my work, as opposed to potentially an entire class. Because my name is attached to this post it can be scrutinized by more than just the instructor. Fortunately I feel that writing a blog open for anyone to read will benefit me because it adds more of a sense of ownership to my writing. My name is attached to this as well as any future posts, so any somewhat prideful person can attest to that being an extra motivational tool to write better.
In all honesty, I would not consider myself an exception writer. I do however consider myself to be a relatively competitive person. The open accessibility of these blogs subtly adds a sense of competition between us classmates in a sense that no one would want anyone else to have vastly superior writing. Because of this I plan on putting perhaps more time and effort into these than I would have normally, and that practice will undoubtedly help me as a writer.
