Skip to main content

Have Blog – Will Write


With over 340 million registered blog sites worldwide (as of 5/1/17), why do I blog?  What makes me think any of my postings will ever matter?  Well . . .
1.      I have this burning desire to write.  It has been my lifelong creative outlet.  I am lost without a pen or paper within reach. Others paint.  Some act or sing or dance.  I write. I have been blogging once a week for the last six years.

2.    Like any other talent, it must be harnessed, practiced, and perfected.  Not all my posts are masterpieces, but blogging forces me to find ideas, shape them, and present them in written form to an audience.

3.    Blogging exercises my writing voice.  Does it appeal to an audience? Do they want to read more?

4.    Having to blog on a regular basis musters my mental muse whether it wants to be mustered or not. Coming up with a weekly blog teaches me discipline and responsibility both to myself and to the reader.

5.    It builds a body of work.  It is a visual resume.  It increases my readership and my SEO.

6.    Claiming my domain and using it as my blog name protects my brand and my platform from others.

7.    Blogging has taught me a lesson about keeping my voice genuine, uplifting, and responsible to the reader.  I try to never give advice that would hurt the reader in any way.

8.    It has become an example of my writing range – biographic, humorous, introspective, fictional. I have used it as a reference on several occasions on queries and applications.

9.    When folks ask about blogging, I can point to my six years of experience, my over 350 blog posts, and the analytics that come with my dedication to this writing form.

10. Bogging has given me feedback that I use as I evolve as a writer – not just in the exercise of writing but also in marketing and in keeping abreast of the latest internet media. With over half of the world’s population on the Internet, a true writer/author needs to be able to employ this canvas. 
Labels:

Comments

  1. AlMay 1, 2017 at 9:15 AM

    Excellent reasons for writing a blog, Raquel. Well said.
    Al

    ReplyDelete
  2. Raquel Martina MartinezMay 1, 2017 at 11:40 AM

    Why thank you, fellow blogger, for the kind words.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Happy Breastday to Me!

I gave myself a very special birthday present this year – I had surgery. Before you think it was to increase, decrease, or “lift” something, let me tell you it was not cosmetic (though I could probably use a few nips and tucks at my age; the infinite number of creams I buy OTC are not working their promised magic). About four or five months ago, I discovered a hard lump about the size of a large marble in my left armpit.  I had been feeling small pangs of pain in my left chest for several months, but I figured it was just my turn to dance with heart disease.  Everyone in my immediate family is diabetic and suffers from strokes or heart attacks, so I thought – here we go; my turn. I was going to tell my internist about the pangs during my next visit, so imagine my surprise when I discovered the lump. The Drama Queen in me immediately manifested herself – cancer, I thought.  I have cancer. I searched some more and found that the texture on the left side of my left breast felt diffe
9 comments
Read more

Dating Challenged

I stink at dating – always have.   I sputter.   I hyperventilate.   I fail miserably every time. I blame a pathetically underdeveloped gene that got little use before I married in my early twenties, then atrophied, gathering dust and rust, until I became single again in my fifties.   I decided to use this defect to my advantage when I needed to do some investigative reporting a few years back.   While on a newspaper writing assignment on Boomer-aged dating, I sacrificed my dignity and my vanity for the sake of the story (and I got several). Thank goodness, HoneyBunch saved me from all this when we married.  (He comes up with the best dates.) I’ve decided I will “show you mine if you show me yours.”   I will swap dating horror stories with you, but you have to promise to play along. The trick here is to tell about your worst date in 25 words or less.   You must keep it clean and you cannot name names. Our little contest will run only this week and before my next blogger posting.   Me
8 comments
Read more

The Girl Who Eats Canned Spinach

I went to a Catholic elementary school run by strict Belgian nuns, and we could not leave the cafeteria until we ate everything served on our food tray. Once a week, they served warmed, canned spinach with our meal. The spinach tasted nothing like the way my grandmother made it, but I ate it. I gulped it down in three or four bites and it amazed my table mates. I told them we ate it at home so I was used to the taste. Now, my real problem began the day I ate the spinach off my friends’ trays so we could go play outside. As soon as the nun monitoring the cafeteria turned her back, my friends ate something off my tray I didn’t want, and I ate their serving of spinach. I only did it for two of my table mates, but the word spread.   On the next Spinach Day, kids followed me to my table.   I was suddenly very popular, and as soon as the nun marched off to the other end of the cafeteria, my friends and an army of others who only knew me as The Girl Who Eats Spinach, begged me to take
8 comments
Read more