Quite a few of our friends — and now I am talking people whom we know who do not spend a lot of time online — are often "very impressed" that I have the ability to sit down and create 500-word blog posts, more or less at will.
"That is soooo much writing!" they exclaim, and I recognize the sincerity of their statements as they probably are in the part of the population who struggles to put an actual explanation below the pictures they post on Facebook.
You've probably seen those kinds of updates: Here's a picture of some man or woman or child, with nothing but a smiley below the photo... and we're all supposed to *guess (I suppose) or know who's in the photo.
A Long Time Ago
I remember back when I was at University, some courses — across all disciplines — were marked in the course catalog as "having a substantial writing component" and were thus because they could be counted towards having completed sufficient English writing for your degree.
I also remember that a lot of my peers would go to great lengths to avoid such courses because they were — quite literally — terrified of the idea of having to write more than a sentence or two.
In fact, if they had their way, they'd be in classes that only required them to check off the boxes of multiple-choice questions.
To Each Their Own...
Don't get me wrong... I'm not trying to fault or shame anyone who's not into writing... the only point I am trying to make here is that 500 words is actually not that much writing.
I know this quite well from first hand experience because I have written fairly extensively for magazines and web sites, and the "assignment" nearly always included a requirement as to how long a submission was expected to be... or what word count was not to be exceeded.
And the truth is that we read 500-word passages of text on a regular basis, whether we're sitting with a magazine at our doctor's office, or perhaps reading the instructions that goes with a recipe that's a little more than just "basic," or reading the instructions on how to change the oil and filter in our car.
So the idea that my blog posts involve "writing soooo much" tend to be made away from the context of what "so much" really means.
Journals "Don't Count?"
The thing I find interesting about my "non-writing friends" is that quite a few of them actually keep and write in paper journals!
And it's a pretty good bet that they actually do write 500 words or more, on a regular basis. I actually brought that up once or twice, as a point of reference... and was told that "that doesn't really count..."
Which all just goes to show that our perceptions of a thing can often be quite different from the reality of that same thing!
Thanks for reading, and have a great remainder of your weekend!
(This post is almost EXACTLY 500 words long!)
How about YOU? Does writing a blog post seem like "a LOT" of writing? Or does it just come easily to you? Is it "different" to write in a paper journal than write a blog online? Do leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!
(All text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is ORIGINAL CONTENT, created expressly for this platform — NOT A CROSSPOST!!!)
Created at 20210711 00:48 PDT
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