Monday 3 February 2014

On Daily Blogging

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I have been blogging daily since the summer of 2010 - a strange business...

The main purpose of this blog is clearly Christian, that is its raison d'etre - but it is important that the blog is a 'Miscellany' where I can write anything or else it would pretty soon become a fake or a chore; because I don't have enough Christian things welling-up in me to have something I want to write on that topic every day.

There are, it seems to me, very few daily bloggers, except for professional bloggers and people who mostly publish topical links to other blogs. This blog remains completely amateur, totally non-money-making, and tries to avoid topicality - and is mostly about my 'notions' (and not about my life - this post being an exception).

Essentially, the blog is produced - as now - by my getting up early (about 05.00h, which is the time I like to get up anyway) and writing the day's entry over the next hour or two and posting it - then maybe thinking about it, revisiting it to edit, or add a summary note over the next few hours (by which time I am at work).

As often as not I add another blog post through the day, sometimes more than one - but on the whole I try to keep to one or two per day to avoid the reader having to skim.

Productivity has not, so far, been a problem - I have not felt myself running out of ideas for more than the odd week or two (e.g. when ill, or the slump after finishing a big project). Of course I repeat myself sometimes, thematically, in the sense of trying to make the same point but in a better or clearer way (what works for one person may not work for another).

The ideas are just there  - they come from thinking; which is the one thing I do more of than most people.

The trouble is that thinking looks so much like doing nothing much, wasting time, not doing stuff I should or could be doing! - nonetheless, that is apparently the way I am (at least, up to now), thinking is a compulsion rather than a decision;  and all attempts to be more 'efficient' and 'get more done' have crashed and burned. If I do not spend time thinking, then I don't do anything else more valuable - I just dissipate even-more time.

Of course the thinking is fuelled by reading and (to some extent) conversation - but the ratio is very strongly slanted towards thinking.

Anyway, that is apparently how it is that - to my surprise, and certainly not planned or wished-for - I find myself a daily blogger; and how it is that I don't often lack things I want to write.

But if it was not for the hope of spreading Christianity, or strengthening faith, then I would not have continued writing for this blog - certainly not on a daily basis.

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5 comments:

Adam Greenwood said...

We are grateful.

stephens said...

I find honest Christian thoughts very helpful, especially those pertaining to our current crazy times.
Those of this blog or Lewis' books etc. tend to linger and be accessible over a great period of time, far longer than any church sermon.
A good use of Christian effort I think. Many thanks.

Ugh said...

Look forward to your blog, always thought provoking. Thank you.

Rich said...

Grateful indeed. Thanks, Bruce.

Donald said...

A great blog. Always stimulating.

I admire your willingness to take what you see as an intractable philosophical problem and then push it - in the opposite direction from Classical Theism - to a particular conclusion.

That said, I do wonder whether it is good (for me) to be fed on a staple diet of - for all intents and purposes - heretical teaching. It seems safer than the pablum of mainstream Christian leaders that's for sure (errrr I trust you more than the current pope!?)!

Just a question I have raised to myself whilst reading your blog.