I’m bad a blogging.
Maybe you’ve noticed. This is the first post that appears on my website since I’ve redesigned and relaunched it. Every few years, I clean house and start over.
I used to blog a lot. I shared things that inspired me, ideas I was thinking about, music I was listening to, and tiny snapshots from my little corner of the world. Some of these things were really just rough drafts, tiny bits that weren’t even truly shareable. They were embarrassing, to be honest. And it’s difficult to have tiny parts of yourself on display attached to a URL that features your name.
I was listening to a podcast called The Moment with Brian Koppelman last night. During Brian’s conversation with TV critics Alan Sepinwall and Matt Zoller, they discussed how the internet has made it difficult to keep record of great criticism and entertainment writing. Before, if you wanted to find Roger Ebert’s thoughts on a particular film, all you had to do was sift through the backstock at your local library. Now, when looking for a particular piece of criticism, be it a blog post, a tweet, or comment on a website, it’s likely you won’t find it. Blogs disappear. Tweets get deleted. Websites get shut down.
Gee, that sounds familiar…
In his book, Share Your Work, Austin Kleon talks about sharing something small every day. As you do so, the days accumulate into weeks into months into years. The more you share, the larger your archive.
Somehow, this is a lesson that never stuck with me. I’m often embarrassed by what I’ve made and therefore, throw it out the first chance I get. Instead, I should be trying to be better. If you’re busy making and sharing new work, you stop worrying about the old work.
So here’s my promise to you moving forward: no more spring cleaning. As I keep writing and creating and exploring, nothing gets deleted. This whole thing is a process, so let’s walk through it together. It’s not as if we’re going to run out of digital drawer space anytime soon.
Let’s get to work…
joshua chamberlain 