Blogs, blogging and bloggers all have a certain stigma attached to them. From “bored housewives” to “creepy internet stalkers”, the blog world usually gets a bad reputation. And as a writer of not only this blog, but my own NBA one, I could not be more confused.
First off, because of the vast flexibility within the domain, I find it difficult to even try and categorize blogging. A blogger could be anyone from a fifth grade student to a CEO to a professional athlete to my grandmother. Posts are written on millions of different topics, even varying within one website alone. And blogs could appear on mediums from online publications, to newspapers, to social media sites and beyond.
But there is one thing that all blogs embody: writing.
To be selfish for a second…my writing has absolutely improved since I first started my online basketball haven. Looking back at a few of my very first entries, I cringe. How could I publish such work? But then the writing tutor in me takes over and reminds me that what matters is the process leading to improvement, not the initial content. And what’s best is that all it took for me to flourish was gossiping about my favorite teams and athletes.
See, thats the beauty of blogging. It lets you become a better writer, no matter how “great” you think you already are, simply by talking about what you love! And, depending on how public you allow your work to be, you have the possibly of constantly gaining feedback. The outside world may not be as polite as us here at the UCWbL, but hey, we’re incomparable.
So to all of you passionate people out there who love to write, stop shunning our world, and join it instead! I promise that someone out there will care about your fear of clowns or obsession with skittles candy. And the more writing we throw out there into the universe, the better.