Shipulski On Design

I’ve written a blog post every Wednesday for the last sixteen years.

The first years were difficult because I was unsure if my writing was worth reading.  Writing became easier when I realized it wasn’t about what others thought of my writing.  For the next ten years, I let go and wrote about things I wanted to write about.  I transitioned from describing things to others to writing to understand things for myself.  I learned that writing about a topic helped me understand it better.

By writing every week, my writing skills improved.  I learned to eliminate words and write densely.  Early on, I wanted to sound smart and, over time, I became comfortable using plain language and everyday words.  My improved writing skills have helped my career.

Over the last several years, writing has become difficult for me.  After 800 blog posts, it became difficult to come up with new topics, and I started putting pressure on myself by trying to live up to an imaginary standard.  I blocked my own flow, everything tightened, and the words came reluctantly.

Then I became tired of paragraphs. I wrote in topic sentences, bulletized lists, and a sequence of questions.  Each topic sentence could have been the topic of a blog post; the individual bullets were standalone thoughts; and the questions ganged up to build the skeleton of a big theme.  For some reason, it was easier to come up with a collection of big thoughts than to write in detail about a single topic.

I’m not sure what the future will bring, but thanks for reading,

Mike

Image credit — chuddlesworth