Five Advantages Of Blogging For Aspiring Authors

There are two broad categories of blogs. One category where professionals showcase the products and services on offer, and the other kind where people just pour out their personal thoughts, opinions and feelings and give life to the writer hidden in them. Whether you blog professionally, or just as a hobby, it requires lot of time and effort. Unless you are regular at blogging, you won’t get many readers. And regularity does require you to spend your time and energy.
In such a case, it might be argued that writers trying to write a novel should stay away from blogging as it would waste their time and energy and make them lose their concentration. However, I believe that blogging is to writing what exercise is to body. Exercise makes your body stronger, likewise blogging makes your writing skills stronger. Let us see how:
PRACTICE
Like every other skill, writing improves with practice too. The more you write, the better and more confident you’ll get at it. And blogging is an excellent way to give yourself this much needed writing practice. Moreover, with several blog directories hosting contests for bloggers, you can also take advantage of these challenges to try and get the best out of your writing. And once this becomes a habit, you will find your words flowing and ideas getting better and better.
DISCIPLINE
Many writers suffer from the tendency of putting off writing for tomorrow and tomorrow. The distractions in the world are far too many and if you allow them to eat up your writing time, they very readily will. What a writer, especially a new writer, needs is discipline. And your blog can teach you this discipline. If you have a blog, you have to update it regularly. And for that, you have to devote regular time to it. This makes you disciplined and can help you develop a writing routine or schedule. And once you get habituated with your routine, you will find you are wasting less time in idle pursuits and devoting more regular hours for your writing.
SHOWCASE YOUR TALENT
When you have a blog, you can register it at various blog directories. Blog directories are an excellent way to showcase your writing. There are several ways these directories help promoting worthy bloggers. They highlight chosen content on their home page, they offer discussion forums wherein you can interact with other bloggers, they host competitions and challenges, and they help you connect and build networks with other bloggers. And you can take advantage of all these to showcase your talent.
FEEDBACK
Once you start getting readers at your blog, you’ll also start getting valuable feedback. If your content manages to move your reader, whether positively or negatively, they will leave their comments. And if you take note of these comments, you can gain valuable insights in what works in your writing, and what does not. This can definitely help you remove your weaknesses and get better at writing.
MOTIVATION
Another area where aspiring authors feel most difficulty is in maintaining their zeal and motivation for the hard work that creating a book requires. Writing is a lonely activity, and for most aspiring writers, it takes time for the rewards to start coming. A writer may also start feeling disinterested in continuing with the book. At such a time, a blog can prove life saver. The appreciation and the comments you receive from your blog’s readers can keep you motivated and strengthen your confidence in your craft. And as you get more and more readers and feel your blog growing, it will keep the writer in you happy and motivated.
So if you are struggling at your literary pursuits, go ahead and try blogging. Just take care that the blog itself does not become too great a distraction to make you forget your dream book.
Jyoti Arora is the author of much acclaimed general fiction book titled DREAM’S SAKE. She manages three blogs (including a technology blog called Techn0Treats) and also posts as a guest reviewer at a book reviews blog.