Blogging as stream of consciousness

I was listening to The Moment podcast, again. This time with Gabrielle Hamilton, writer and chef. She mentioned this idea about writing as a digestive process. When you write something you should sit on it a while so that you have time to reflect and decide what to keep and what to delete.

She said this in spite of our blogging culture where people write something then publish right away. Usually that's what I do here. A lot of of things I take care to craft a good narrative and sit on it a while before sending it out into the world, but usually if I do that then it never gets finished. That's my problem and has nothing to do with the point Gabrielle was making, because for the most part I agree.

Certain writing needs time to simmer and boil just like cooking. When you eat something right out of the oven you burn your mouth, but when you let it cool you can enjoy it much more without having to spit it out because it's too hot. In the moment maybe something you write seems fresh and inspired, smart and funny, beautiful and sexy, yet if you let it cool you can see it for what it really is: crap.

I'm sort of kidding. My main rebuttal to Gabrielle is that blogging as stream of consciousness can be liberating. It sets you free the limitations of strict rules and becomes an exercise in writing well the first time. Everything these days can be corrected. Photos with photoshop, music with autotune, movies with editing; nothing is never perfect the first time. It never was before the digital age and it never will in it. Although some people try real hard.

Blogging is sort of like that. Imperfection, free association, journal, stream of consciousness, garbage that we try to get right the first time as an exercise in getting it done. To write something for the fun of writing it, to share your life with others. No matter if it's trite, derivative, uninspired dribble from the mind of a lunatic. Set it free and someday you might be able to turn it into gold. And you'll never going to reach those 10,000 hours by sitting on your hands. So get moving.