HistoryJournal.org

I read about WordPress’s PostAWeek Challenge for 2011 today, and it made me think about how I have more articles sitting in my “Drafts” folder from the past six months than those that have actually been published. I think I have been leaning too heavily on the side of “literary-like” writing lately (and hence killing drafts with an overly-zealous editing standard) and less on the more informal style which is the hallmark of blogging.

So, at the risk of this blog degenerating into a collection of YouTube videos about my hauls, I will publish an article every week on this blog in 2011. The sample post suggested by WordPress, with such phrases as “[relying on] the community of other bloggers” and “asking for help when I need it” makes this challenge sound almost like a substance-abused support group. I guess one can “abuse” the instinct to edit to the point of crippling the writing process altogether. I’ve also been coming around to the realization that online communities are a legitimate way to connect with people (strangely enough, an article titled “Why I Hate Social Media” and its related commentary sparked this realization – perhaps more on this later), so WordPress may have a point there.

Since one of the reasons for this blog has been to train myself to write better (hence the push-ups image, in case you were wondering) and since that can’t be accomplished without me actually writing once in a while, look for at least a post a week on this blog in 2011 (I’m thinking Sundays).