Blogging, journaling, and general creative / reflective writing is interesting to me, I think. (Quite a meta article I am writing). For a while now, I've felt like it would be valuable for me to have some way to express my ideas in writing - certainly, the external processing is very valuable. But, I've often struggled with how exactly to approach that.

I think one of the weirdest things to me about this sort of reflective writing is the "audience" - who am I writing to? That's always been hard for me when I'm journaling in particular - am I writing to myself? If so, my future self, present self, past self? All of the above? To God? To a theoretical future reader? Who would that even be? (You can tell that it is easy for me to overthink).

Blogging (or any sort of thing that some other person might read) is easier in that regard (at least it is directed outward), but it also poses new questions. Who am I writing for? How much personal information should I include? How much do I care about the quality of the content I am writing? Even more things to think (and overthink) about! On top of this, if I'm going into writing with the purpose of externally processing and expressing my thoughts (the ultimate goal being to provide more mental space and peace), then I definitely don't want to let focusing on the actual quality and output of content in the blog harm that main goal. Also, I have a life to lead outside of writing a blog - I don't want it to take up too much of my time!

Here are some of my ideas for answers to these questions, as I processed through this:

Audience: One simple idea I have is, to write almost like you are writing to yourself, except without knowledge of the idea or topic that you are writing the article about. That way:

• You don't have to recount every little detail of your life story.
• You still focus on getting your message across, and processing through the idea you are trying to think through.
• You can communicate ideas that will make sense for someone reading who doesn't know you super well, but mainly benefiting those who do know you well (since I'm not trying to become super famous from this anyway).

Other quick thoughts

• Don't worry about how frequently I am publishing, or how quality the words are! If it is very stream of consciousness like this, that is okay, but I also can choose to publish things so that only I or people I trust can see them if I desire.
• If talking about something more personal, keeping the article hidden could be helpful if I want to talk about more intimate details I don't want easily accessible on the whole internet.
• Don't be afraid to share my ideas with others! This sort of platform is a helpful way to connect with others and provides a means for me to both express my ideas in a way that is meaningful for me and encourage other people as a result.
• The writing itself is a blessing too - don't be afraid to keep stuff as a draft for a long time, or even never publish it if I never really complete my thoughts on it. There truly is no rush here.