IWSG for October 2012

Well, here we are again. The first Wednesday of the month and that means it's time for another installment of the Insecure Writers Support Group. Conceived by Ninja Captain Alex J. Cavanaugh, the IWSG is an exercise in expressing things about your writing that you're just not all that comfortable with. I've been participating since June and have found it to be pretty therapeutic. It's also nice to visit other writer's blogs and see that a lot of us aren't so different from one another.

This month I'd like to talk a little about social media and blogging.

These days, my main source of 'social media' is over at Google Plus. It used to be another outlet that starts with an 'F" and ends with a 'K'. No, it's not a four letter word....get your minds out of the gutter. The answer, as if you didn't know, is Facebook. I post a lot....some would say an obscene amount....to my Google Plus stream, as opposed to Facebook where I'm lucky if I log in once or twice a week.

Regardless, though, it's not the medium that, sometimes, causes the insecurity....it's the message. I always wonder if the things I'm posting are....

1. Interesting enough.
2. Relevant enough.
3. Getting the point I'm trying to make across.

Sometimes, on G+, I'll get a ton of comments on a post when I expected next to nothing and vice versa.

Now, how does this apply to my writing? I always wonder if what I'm posting makes sense. If it's structured correctly. If I'm even using proper grammar. Thankfully, the built in spell checker usually saves my bacon on spelling errors, so that's one less thing I have to worry about. Before I set out to get serious about writing, I wouldn't worry or care less about those sort of things. These days, besides content, it's always in the forefront of my mind.

The same holds true with blogging.

Basically....am I doing it right? It's rare that I get many comments on my blog posts....here or on my other, general purpose, blog. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Not that I'm expecting a lot of comments on my blogs. Those are for me and my writing.

For me, it's the writing equivalent of going to the gym.....I'm just working the writing muscle. I've even found that when I'm writing little notes, I try to make sure to capitalize and punctuate correctly. That sounds strange, I know, but it's exercise.

I think that, in this case, the insecurity can be a good thing. It keeps me 'on my toes' and forces me to, at least, try to keep things up to par, writing-wise.

The way I look at it these days, writing is writing so why not do it the best way I know how?