2023: A Year of Writing Reflections

Over a year ago, I launched my own website to showcase my written work. This included articles and reports that I had already published for organisations such as We Make Change, Thrive, and the blog site for my department at LSE when I was studying for my Masters. At the beginning of this year, I launched my own blog site on the website, where I have been writing monthly blogs on areas of my own interest including places that I have travelled to this year, key issues within my professional field and book reviews.

I’ve learnt a lot about blogging since I started and I thought that I would use the last blog of this year to share some of my own reflections.

The importance of reflections.

Inspiration comes from anywhere

It is truly difficult to say where the inspiration came from for some of my blogs because a lot of them came to me automatically. My aim for this year was to have a blog out every single month, and the content of them was often dictated by what was going on for that month. Some blogs were more planned than others such as my holidays abroad and books that I had read, while others started off as ideas which I found in the news or LinkedIn before I developed them into a coherent blog piece.

Inspiration can be hard

On the flipside, especially when there is nothing to guide or inspire a blog, the writing process can be difficult. While some blogs were created effortlessly as my thoughts and ideas easily translated onto my document, there were moments when thinking about what to write was much harder. Although there was a slight panic at the moment - as I had assigned a dedicated block of time to write -  I didn’t ponder on the feeling as I knew that by my publishing deadline, I would have a fully fledged blog that I was happy with and excited to share. Particularly in these moments, I would use more unusual sources of inspiration such as social media, random articles I found online and even Chat GPT (just by writing ‘blog ideas' on current topics within [field/area]). Not only did this provide inspiration for me in perhaps the most difficult stage of writing (the idea stage), but it also allowed me to become more comfortable writing about issues which were not part of my main interests.

Sometimes you have to force yourself to write

The most important thing that I have found about writing blogs, and this can even be applied to writing in general, is finding the time to write around other commitments. You could be extremely passionate about writing and blogging, but working a fulltime job, having a social life, keeping fit and doing other things often come in the way of writing. Although these commitments enrichen life experiences and can often be used to guide blogs, they do get in the way of the writing process. I usually publish my blogs at the end of the month, giving myself a ‘soft’ date (normally a week and a half before the publishing date) and a ‘hard’ date (a few days before the publishing date), both of which serve as deadlines for me and the catalyst for forcing me to start writing a few weeks beforehand.

Things always change

Something that I have found when writing is that no matter how much I plan (both on the page and in my mind) for a certain blog, there will always be changes. Planning and writing are at their core, two very different processes, despite how interrelated they are. Furthermore, planning what to write and then planning how to write it are also different processes which often work against each other - a paragraph which was originally meant to go after the introduction might end up in the conclusion or vice versa. For this reason, my first draft is always ‘draft 0’; it is the draft where I empty my mind of the ideas and make sense of what I want to write messily and inconsistently, before coming back and editing. I would argue that ‘draft 0’ is the most significant part of writing a blog, or any other writing project as it is the first time you will see your thoughts and ideas on the paper.

My aim behind launching my own website and subsequent blog was being able to get my writing out and into the world. I have experimented a lot, but I have also learnt a lot about the art that is writing and I am excited to see where the next year takes me.