When I began writing my name as a preschooler, I had no idea how much a part of my life writing would become. Taking a crayon from a choice of 120 crayons and spelling out my name was just the beginning. How far I have come since those days of taking out a blank piece of paper and choosing from a box filled with writing tools that had names like Burnt Sienna or Periwinkle. How far we all have come in this day of technology.
With social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Digg, writing has become a social phenomenon. The simple phrases and Tweets you send can be seen by hundreds, if not thousands of people. That is only the beginning. On these sites, you can pass on the writing of others by clicking "digg this" or "add to Facebook". On Twitter, one can input short sentences or phrases, restricted by a 140 character limit, answering the question, "what are you doing?"
In addition to those that write, there are those that are writers.
By this I mean individuals that write professionally online. One way people participate in freelance writing is by maintaining a blog. There are thousands and thousands of blogs out on the World Wide Web that people have created to write about any subject they chose, any time of day. Blogs do not have editors and are a perfect exercise of the first amendment, along with the spread of information overload.
Writing now requires more than the simple tools of a piece if paper and a pen. It has become more complex with the addition of computers and the Internet. It has also opened up opportunities for creative geniuses to share their work with millions of people on a daily basis, even while they sleep.
However, along with this easy access of information comes competition. It is no longer about who wrote the best essay in your 2nd grade class, which will be posted on the wall for all to see. Now, the writing competition is bigger than that, much bigger. For those that want traffic to their blog, maybe this means they have to write something damn good or extraordinary to entice readers. Not only that, but have great means of marketing this writing to get people to come back and read more. So, then there comes the graphic design and a user-friendly blog.
Yes, not only do you have to keep up with the content on a fairly regular basis, but maintain an aesthetically pleasing designed blog. This just keeps getting more and more difficult, huh? I have recently decided to take the following steps to make my blog more marketable.
- I have changed the name, including my own domain that I now own (no more blogspot).
- I have changed the template to stand out a little bit more than the standard templates you can initially choose.
- Next, I will focus on the content and creating a niche that all my readers will love.
These are just a few of the recommended steps from some of the successful bloggers. It is a work in progress. Yes, all of this is a lot more involved than pre-internet and pre-social media writing. So now I'm taking the next step as a writer in the age of technology.
Anyone want to color?
Crayon Photo: Bookgrl, http://www.flickr.com/photos/bookgrl/
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