Review, Reflect, Revise

I’ve always had a different vision for this blog. As my other blog is mainly a portfolio and repository for all things health, fitness, and wellness this was to be reserved for all the “other” of life. Whether it’s reflections on work, family, or other important life experiences this was to be a place for documenting my personal journey in hopes to pass on whatever lessons I’ve learned.

The original goal wasn’t to profess knowledge or educate others. It was supposed to be from a journeyman’s perspective rather than a teacher’s. However, it quickly evolved into a wanna-be TED Talk journal maybe something straight from Medium.com or some other life experience monologue replete with how-to lists and summaries of action-oriented steps. Maybe not entirely, but it sure was headed that way.

All is not negative. I do enjoy writing to help others, reflect on thoughts, and pretend to profess wisdom. Looking back I feel my default writing style is one of helping others in such a way that I structure my thoughts in a very tactical and somewhat technical way. For years I wrote fitness-related articles for major and minor websites, blogs, and magazines. I was to construct utilitarian style flow in order to educate and inform readers. Since it was fitness/health subject matter I had to write a bit mechanically.

Review

As stated above, I feel as though what I’ve written for the past few months started out nobly enough, but soon evolved a bit too “vanilla” for my liking. What I mean is that I let other factors enter into my mind and sought after feelings and trigger points of others. I was seeing what made the audience tic all the while slowly abandoning the true inner thoughts I had initially intended.

Playing to the audience is necessary in some circles. As I said earlier, my job as a freelancer was to put myself in my audience’s shoes, identify pain points, and devise practical solutions. Naturally this transferred over into everything I’ve written in some capacity.

Reflect

Now that I’ve reviewed my past works I can reflect on where I want to go from here. Like I said, I want this blog to differ greatly from my other blog, but without forcing it to do so. I look at other blogs I follow with almost an envious desire. How do they just open up like that? How do they convey their thoughts, those personal, unique thoughts so eloquently? How can I reach deeper inside and pull out my own unique voice?

Again, I am careful not to fall prey to the audience dilemma. To write toward my audience. That trap where that little voice in the back of your mind is pitting everything you’re writing against a screening process regarding how it will do out in the internet ether.

The trick, I believe, is to write to myself. In freelance work the saying goes like this: write for only one person as if that is the only person on the planet. That way your writing feels more personal and, in turn, your writing flows more naturally. But here I want to accomplish something different — to write to myself.

Revise

So where do I go from here? In a word: nowhere. I will still be writing what comes to mind, what experiences I’ve had or am having, and interesting issues that can possibly be relatable to others. I want to start dissecting and digging deeper so that I may evolve through writing. To reveal things along some of my journeys. To reach to the past and bring forth the present in unique ways as to expose myself to the reader. No catering, cowering, or conforming.

It won’t be easy or instant. A switch will not reveal itself. It will take me letting go. It will take me listening.

At the risk of sounding a bit too “deep” I must digress a little and stress that I’m not going all woo woo on you. With all that said above I also want to take a broader view. A bigger picture of things. I feel that some of us get too caught up in the weeds and forget the bigger issues.

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In the meantime I want to thank you for being here. Thank you for reading and I hope I can learn from your thoughts, comments, and messages. Stay tuned!