I haven’t written many more articles. I have published some creative writing prior to my entry into technical writing. The two articles I published in Intercom are the only ones I’ve ever published there. I had an article in Tieline earlier this year on setting up a chapter blogs.

I also published something on the Techwr-l site about style guides.

http://www.pearsonified.com/2006/04/do_you_think_in_blog.php

So how many more articles have you written?

The first thing people usually say when they think about blogging is what they will write about. I actually have dozens of posts that I’m planning to write. When I get an idea I want to write about but don’t have time, I start a post to capture the idea, and then hit Save instead of Publish. I just counted my saved, unpublished posts (“drafts”) and there are 38 sitting in my dashboard. Now ironically I have to decide what not to write about.

I also have a masters in creative writing, so I also enjoy writing. What’s crazy is that I get more comments on my blog than I did in the last two Intercom articles I published. In many ways blogging can be more rewarding than writing for print. You can actually see how many hits you’re getting, and people often comment, enriching the content and thought of your original post. Posts/articles become conversations, not static material.

You mentioned focus. There’s one blog that comes to mind: http://darrenbarefoot.com. He’s got a great tone and provides worthwhile insights, but his topics are so wide-ranging that I wish I could just subscribe to his technical writing category. There’s something to be said for keeping your blog on track with what you’re passionate about, and limiting that passion to a niche. For me, that includes technical writing, blogging, podcasting, new Web tools, Web 2.0, and WordPress. I guess I’m not as focused as I’d like to be, but in my mind they all somewhat connect.

1. I needed to update my site. It was 2.5 years out-of-date. I thought I had to do the geek thing and hand-code everything, which takes time, so it never got done. Suddenly, using a service like WordPress was not being lazy. It was a tremendous tool that could push me over the obstacle that was keeping me from writing.

2. Post once, share forever! Indeed. This is one of the driving forces behind my getting my site up and running in some manageable fashion again.

3. Yes, I am scare of blah. I did discover that after being impatient to get my site updated, I suddenly didn’t know what to write about. That is, what could I write and still keep to some goal or purpose so topics didn’t wander all over the place and make people (if any came by) wonder what I was trying to say. I’m still a newbie, so I feel it is OK with erratic postings here at the beginning while I am still getting the feel of things. You are right about the value of posting every day. My favorite example of that is Georges Sand, who sat down and wrote 8 pages every day after breakfast just for practicing, or so the story goes. Practice does make perfect!

The idea of diving in is what is driving “Uncle Lester” over at http://lespotter001.wordpress.com/. Isn’t this the old adage about technical communicators (or any field really)? You really need to stay in touch with all the news and keep up with the trends to keep your career fresh and alive? What better way than to try these things out for yourself? I would think it adds credibility.