Let me start the first day of a cold January by penning down questions that have been perturbing me since I restarted blogging. Let’s talk about the pressure of remaining high up on the WordPress Reader or search engines or being relevant every single hour on social media platforms. Do you feel pressurized to churn out content, incessantly? Do you fear reader engagement or readership on your blog will fall if you don’t publish regularly, daily, or even every 12 hours to reach audience across all timezones? Do you write for quality or quantity?
The dilemma is so real that a pleasurable hobby like writing or even reading has become a competitive exercise. We see reading challenges all over the Internet and people reading and reviewing books on tight schedules. The numbers are met, records made, challenges completed, several authors reviewed, more complimentary books received, a sense of satisfaction achieved, but how much did the reader actually absorb, remember, or imbibe for a deep and lasting impression.
Likewise, in the world of writing. Do we really delve deep into a thought, an idea, or acquire relevant information, and complete our research before we take pen to paper? Do you have time to sit back or even walk away and come back to the written piece to polish it? Are topics chosen carefully or every time it’s a rushed medley of words and a hurried move to press Publish and then embark upon social media publicity?
It worries me sometimes that the beautiful, sacred art of writing has been converted into a commercial act, predominated by the dashboard and statistics, and the pressures of social media coverage. I feel that the real, artistic voices, the serious thinkers, the ones who can add value and magic to the written word, to the publishing industry are relegated to the background. Some lose the war of the SEO engine or some just give up in frustration. Not all writers are keyboard warriors – Do you feel the same?
Blue Pen Strokes 