Settling for less

Yesterday, I spotted a tweet referencing a blog post by Manton Reece on no-pressure blogging and it served as a reminder on what I’m trying to achieve with this blog.

A lot of care is taken over the articles I write, but with that comes a long gestation period, careful writing and plenty of editing. My idea with this blog was to publish regularly but I put a lot of pressure on that.

Not long ago (and for the life of me, I can’t find it to reference), I read an anecdote about a pottery class where the teacher divided the class in two groups, asking one group to research and work on only one pot for presentation at the end of the year, and the other to make as many pots as possible and present the best. It turned out that the latter group made the best pot – they’d honed their skills by doing, by failing and learning from their errors.

Not every article I write will be a tour de force. Far from it. But I’m learning with every one that goes out there.

As Manton says,

I love that blogs can scale from the trivial to the important. The microblog post about what you had for breakfast. The half-baked rant about something you’re passionate about. And sometimes, the rare essay that really hits the mark and makes people think.

So it looks like I need to be more comfortable with the trivial and half-baked!