The video that I shared in my previous blog entry is a small piece of a longer video. It's the 3rd part of a 4-part video by Ira Glass on storytelling. I posted a blog entry about the 2nd part of the video to my other blog.*
I've been wanting to post to that other blog with reckless abandon, but it just wasn't happening. So, I started this blog and already I'm feeling more hopeful...well, cautiously hopeful... For one thing, the title of this blog, For Sharing, is making quite a difference because it's simpler and more all-encompassing than the title for the old blog, Small Experiments.
The other thing I'm noticing is that posting in small pieces is making a big difference. At first I was trying to combine the content of these first 3 blog entries all into one entry. I'm pretty sure that would not have produced as good results. With my old blog, my goal was to post an entry at least once a week (which quickly morphed into at least once a month). Framing the goal in that way didn't match my more natural style of doing things which is to binge on something when I feel more like doing it (as I've done today with blogging) and then not worry about it until the next wave of enthusiasm for it hits. So with the old blog, I'd find myself holding back on doing more blogging after posting an entry. I'd already met my goal and if I didn't hold back I might not have anything for next week. Whereas with this new blog, I can see how I'm better set up to blog in small simple pieces with reckless abandon.
* Here's the blog entry that was on my Small Experiments blog. I decided to revamp that blog and start from scratch with it, so I've removed my old blog entries from it. I moved this one here instead of deleting it:
Exactly what I needed to hear
While doing some unintentional websurfing, I managed to stumble across exactly what I needed to hear.
I've been getting too attached to something I've been writing. I knew I was getting myself in trouble when I found myself obsessively editing and getting really hung up on particular wording...which is a surefire way to end up way too attached to what I've written. Which makes it all the more painful when I now have to kill what I'm attached to.
Hearing what Ira Glass had to say about this will probably save me from trying in vain to salvage that which I need to kill. To hear Ira Glass' words of wisdom yourself, play the 2nd video on the following page:
http://www.yourdailyawesome.com/2007/03/02/ira-glass-on-storytelling/
(The part about having to kill things doesn't happen until about a minute into the video which starts out with "On finding great stories...")
1 comment:
Hello! This is the first comment to a blog that I have ever made! I can really relate to your process (and Ira's). I have been procrastinating writing my literature review for my Methodologies class. Actually, I got an incomplete in my methodologies class and now I am making it up. ANYWAY I was refusing to do it, and I realized that it was because I do not know how to do it, and I was frustrated and I did not want to fail. I have started it now, and I am doing the best that I can. Baby steps.
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