Spontaneity

“Being allowed to write spontaneously releases us of the expectation that our writing must be perfect and polished.” (Mortensen & Walker, 2002)

I think I will always have high expectations of the standard of my own writing. However, there are elements of written language that I wouldn’t use in a standard written assignment, but am comfortable using in my blog.

Adrian Miles’ blog entry about the writing process struck a chord with me as I recognised the same challenges I face writing this blog; whether to plan; having too many ideas at once and not knowing where to start; etc. So, at this point the usual challenges of writing are not being totally alleviated by the blogging process – however, I feel that it’s getting easier, and trying to be more spontaneous in my posting is helping, as it means I can publish some thoughts quickly, leave them and revisit them later on. In her blog, thinking with my fingers, Toril Mortensen writes: “I can sneak up on [a thought] at a time when my head is busy with something else, and I can surprise it in a different context.” I also find this strategy useful for clarifying and developing my ideas; the spontaneity of the original post is only the first part of the process, revisiting, revising and adding to it is the second.