Bloggers by definition are writers. They may not write stories, but they write enough to fill many books. It doesn’t matter whether you blog about yourself or random and esoteric topics that only matter to you (cough: guilty). You are still a writer. If you write about yourself, you are writing an autobiography. If you write about current events, you are a journalist. If you write anything at all, you are a columnist, a historian, a science writer, or whatever title you want. You may not get paid a lot, but you are still a writer — most writers out there just gasped and said, “Yah right, like I do?” If you still don’t believe me, I am the self-appointed authority and I hereby declare you a writer, so don’t argue the point.
As a writer, the thoughts and ideas that flit around your head are the most important things you own. Random thoughts become great works of art … or posts, and with your skill the most esoteric and specialist topic can bring knowledge to the masses. For every thought you have, there is a blog post or story to go with it. Sure you may not write a post about how it would be cool to play shuffle puck with superconductors, but it could be — and it would be such a good idea, and whoever invents it needs to invite me over to play. The worst enemy to a writer is not not having ideas, but losing them — you can always get more ideas, but there is no recycle bin in the sky where lost ideas go.
As a self-proclaimed writer and programmer, I always need new ideas, and as someone who has an insatiable need to know, my curiosity piques itself on the most esoteric of topics, but for years these ideas and desires would come, but they would be pushed aside if I had something more important to do; thus, countless golden ideas vaporized into the abyss as my mind moved from each “ooh shiny” thought to another. But I’m a writer, and my ideas are the most important part of me.
It was a losing battle for me. The evil empire of forgetfulness and sloth frequently defeated the kingdom of the idea in battle, but I decided to fight unfairly: I started carrying a notebook — specifically a moleskin one (caution: amazon referral link) — with me everywhere I go. Suddenly, I didn’t have to worry about forgetting my most ingenious ideas because I could just write them down. I no longer lay awake for hours at night just thinking about a thousand things because I can now just write them down and go to sleep secure in the knowledge that I can continue composing them in the morning.
Today these notebooks have been filled several times over, and their pages are filled with everything from website designs and programs to code, topics to research, movies to watch, recipes to cook, ideas for posts on my website, and to-do lists. My notebook has never let me down — although my pen often does. Now that you are officially a writer, do what a writer does and keep your thoughts alive. It doesn’t have to be a shiny new Moleskin notebook, even a $0.30 one from a corner store will work perfectly — although it will disintegrate from use, so go buy one, and you will see what a notebook means to you, and you will find that it truly is the most important writing tool you will ever own.