Blogging this semester allowed me to practice writing in a more personal style that I haven’t really gotten to use in an academic setting before, except in my college essay and some supplementals. It was an interesting journey of discovering my voice as a writer and how I can use my voice to create an effective piece of writing.
The blog I enjoyed writing most was “Where’d All the Time Go?”. Interestingly enough, this was also the most difficult blog for me to write. I had all of the ideas in my head, but it was difficult to put them onto paper (or computer, in this case). I kept writing sentences, changing them, moving them around to find the right spot, and eventually deleting them altogether when a better idea came to mind. In the end, though, I really felt like my words reflected my thinking about how quickly it feels like time has passed. This blog was a really introspective look into
my relationship with time, a nostalgic, bittersweet feeling that life was passing by, and I hadn’t even realized it. It was fun (and a bit sad!) to scroll through my camera roll to find photos from earlier high school years to use as a photo comparison to now, reflecting on my time in high school and how much I have enjoyed it.
As I mentioned earlier, writing these blogs have been particularly helpful in developing my voice as a writer. Finding a good combination of tone, vocabulary, and syntax to build my personal style really helped make writing these blogs an enjoyable experience because my words better express my thoughts. Reading other students’ blogs helped with finding my voice, as well, because I was exposed to a wider range of styles that gave me new ideas for my own writing. I also found that finding different forms of multimedia to include in my blogs, whether it was pictures from my own camera roll or images online, really helped convey my ideas. I think that scrolling through the blog website and seeing all the pictures other people have
included helps catch the reader’s eye and make them more interested in the blog, so the multimedia component of blogging is also really essential.
Reading and interacting with other blogs also allowed me to learn about new artists, entertainment, food, and restaurants. For example, reading blogs about new artists on Spotify, drinks at Starbucks, TV shows, and more helped me discover new types of things that I already consume. I also learned about topics I probably wouldn’t focus on normally, like football, philosophical topics, and technology. It was an opportunity to learn about the interests of people I don’t normally talk to often, or even at all.
Writing blogs has allowed me to discover a new type of writing, a more relaxed, personal version that I actually really enjoy. Academic writing, like analytical essays and timed writings, definitely isn’t my favorite, but I also feel like I’m not great at creative, fictional writing either. One thing I did struggle with a bit towards the end of the semester was coming up with new ideas for blogs. I didn’t want to repeat the same topics that other students have written about, like college applications or lists of the best TV shows, restaurants, artists, etcetera, but at the same time, I was running out of other options. However, this forced me to be more creative by really thinking about my interests and finding a way to form those into an interesting blog. Blogging has been a fun opportunity to write about topics in which I’m interested, in a style in which I feel more comfortable.