writing

Join the Pure Blogging Movement and Write For Us

Hi there!

At Pure Blogging, the goal is simple ? to publish content that matters, both to the blogger and the reader.

While there?s nothing wrong with business blogs, or marketing blogs, or social media blogs, etc., they?re ten to the dozen now. And many have become sterile.

Pure Blogging is the antithesis of that.

As a reader and subscriber, you?ll find only content that truly matters to the blogger. Content that bleeds from the page with emotion and honesty.

Simply put, content the way it?s meant to be.

And we’d love for you to be part of that by writing for us!

Now, I’ll be honest – the pay is lousy (there is none) and the rewards as far as fame and celebrity go are equally as dire.

However…. what you will get is a place to write about pretty much anything you want. Of course, there are exceptions – no racism, no bigotry, no hate speech, no sexism, no personal vendettas, and no political content.

Apart from that, you should be pretty much good to go.

And, the team here is awesome and very supportive; there’s no scheduling (you essentially write when you want); and you’ll be free to truly publish the kind of content that perhaps your professional life or blog isn’t suited to.

So… If you?re interested in writing for Pure Blogging, simply fill in the form on this page?with your name, contact email, a link to your blog (and some of your personal favorites from that blog), and if I think there?s a fit, I?ll be in touch.

Thanks for your interest, and here?s to content that matters!

Note: The Pure Blogging project is no longer live, but feel free to check out my latest project, UNFUCD, here.

Writing vs Blogging – Is There a Difference?

Many people view blogging and writing as both the same thing. After all, isn’t blogging just an extension to writing, and/or vice versa?

Instead of offering my view on this, I thought it’d be fun and interesting to open up and let you be the authors of this post.

So, writing versus blogging – is there a difference?

Over to you.

But That Doesn’t Make You a Writer

I’m sitting here in front of my MacBook, fingers hitting the keyboard letters every now and again, trying to put down into words the cool idea I had for a post earlier today.

I know how it should flow; I know how it should read; I know the start, middle, and finish. But I can’t get it to come out the way it presented itself in my head.

There are many reasons for that.

One, I’m stupid tired. Several late nights and early rises have caught up with me, and my eyes feel like they’d burn holes in snow faster than a drunk’s hot piss.

Two, there are so many distractions around me that, while I know I should be ignoring them, are present all the same. And I can’t ignore them.

The third, and probably most relevant point, is I’m not a writer, so I don’t practice the process of flow, of transferring ideas to prose, and moving beyond the mind-block when the block’s setting in like cement on a new driveway.

Because while I may write content on a page like the one you’re reading now, that doesn’t make me a writer. Enough people – writers, real writers – have told me that enough times that?every one of their disparate statements are now just one single soundbite.

You put words together. You sometimes make it enjoyable. It may even get you praise from your readers. But that doesn’t make you a writer.

So that’s why I’m currently sat here, wondering if I can get the opening pushed through to the middle part and weave its way to the end.

Because if I don’t, I’ve just wasted my time, right?

Maybe so. But do I give a fuck? No.

What Is a Writer?

So I don’t have prose flowing from my fingers like the classics that make ordinary scribes writers.

So I don’t have students of the English language discussing my words as part of their mark for their senior year exam.

So I don’t have a key to the city where I was born, for bringing the literary masses to see where that city’s wordsmith was born, and raising the tourism income a certain percent above the average.

So I don’t get introduced at parties as “the writer, [INSERT NAME HERE]”.

Does that matter?

Maybe I’m not a writer. Maybe you’re not a writer either, because you don’t have any of the prerequisites above to be “a writer”.

Does that lessen the words that do come out? Do they offer less gravitas than someone who’d be described as a real writer, because they write prose and books that sell versus words on blogs that exist?

Maybe. Maybe not. To be honest, it’s not something that should matter.

It’s the Words, Not the Writer

If you touch someone emotionally, are you less of a writer because that emotion bled from a blog post?

If you connect with someone viscerally, are you less of a writer because the visceral origin was a block quote?

If you describe something less grammatically but more visually, are you less of a writer because the visual stemmed from the connected resonance of blogger and reader taking it into a new dimension in the comments?

I don’t really know where I’m going with this.

Like I said at the start, I’m beat,?and a little distracted with several things that need to be done before the end of the week. So I may not even be writing something that flows, or makes some kind of sense to more than just me.

I’m sure those that critique words that don’t fit into?their definition of prose will add a new sentence or two that says the same thing.

You shared your thoughts, but that doesn’t make you a writer.

And maybe that’s true. What do I know? I just put thoughts into words that may or may not form some structured flow, even if that flow is the Orinoco one.

Would the flow be better if I was a real writer? Probably.

Would the direction be more focused if I was a real writer? Probably.

Would the words connect deeper on any level if I was a real writer?

That, my friends, is the question that really matters. And you don’t have to be a real writer to answer it.

The Writing Process

It’s pretty hard to write about your writing process when there isn’t a specific writing process to write about (try saying that three times late on a Saturday night!).

While I completely understand that there needs to be some kind of flow, to be honest that’s not how my brain’s wired.

Given I’m juggling a lot of hypothetical balls (and I’m worse than Mr Magoo when it comes to juggling), the chances I get to write “properly” are few and far between.

However, since the kind ladies at Morning Rain Publishing recently?asked about my writing process as part of their series looking at how their authors work, I’ll try my best to accommodate with something that at least looks like it might be a process.

It Starts With A Scribble

Much like the way William Carson described his own writing process, my ideas usually come to me at the most inopportune time – running to catch a train, munching on a lunch-time banana, or even changing my two-year-old daughter’s diaper.

Because of this, many ideas are often lost – try writing something down with banana-covered fingers, or worse (I’ll spare you the diaper info).

Because of that, when I do get an opportunity to put down an idea, it’s wherever I can find somewhere to store or share it. This can be a text to myself, an email, a Post-It, or (on occasion) a marker on my forearm.

If I have the luxury of being near a computer, I’ll pop into Word, or my blog, and draft up the headline that sprang to mind, along with a one sentence “brief” that gives me the pointers to work on when I actually have some downtime.

I find this works really well for me, since I’m the kind of writer that writes as the thoughts come into my head, and keeps writing.

[clickToTweet tweet=”Readers are drawn in by stories that evoke an emotional connection – be that connector. #writing” quote=”Readers are drawn in by stories that evoke an emotional connection – be that connector”]

I usually don’t worry about how well it’s edited (that’s why there are far smarter people than me called editors, after all!) – instead, I want to catch the raw story and emotion at exactly the time I’m thinking about it.

On my blog, this has led to some of the most personal and confrontational posts I’ve ever written – but isn’t that what good blogging is all about anyway, rawness and emotion?

Besides, as a reader, I’m drawn in more by the story and how that evokes emotional connection in me, versus worrying about whether or not I’ve pissed off some grammar Nazi god somewhere.

The Surroundings Don’t Necessarily Matter

On top of the way I string ideas together, and how I write, I’m also pretty haphazard when it comes to where I write.

When I was speaking to my wife about this, I mentioned my writing space is essentially my head. Which doesn’t make for a very visual picture.

The image below is of the table that’s in one of our front rooms.

It’s a mish mash of family life – kids toys, baby wipes, portable DVD player, my headphones (perfect for late night YouTube watching when you don’t want to wake the family), and my trusty MacBook Air.

While it might look cluttered – okay, not might: is – ?it’s actually a very therapeutic little place for me. It reminds me of how lucky I am in having the kind of love a household needs to make it a home, while still affording me the little space I need for my own belongings.

If I’m not writing there, then I may draft some ideas during lunchtime at work, or simply text myself on the Lakeshore West GO train on any given weekday.

Because I write as an idea comes to me, versus meticulously planning, re-planning, and revising, I find even the craziness of clutterdom works in my favour. Which is alright in my books (no pun intended).

After all, the process is merely the tool that gets us to where we need to be – it’s the initial step on a new writing adventure that really matters.

And isn’t that how it should be?

A version of this post originally appeared on the Morning Rain Publishing blog, where my book The Little Book of Inspiration will be published early 2015.

Remember When We Just Hit Publish?

Remember the good old days of blogging? Come up with something to say, write it down, hit Publish, and onto the next piece whenever that came to mind.

Now we have to worry about content authority, author rank, Hummingbird, content overkill, content optimization, etc, etc.

It seems we spend so much time worrying on the presentation, we lose track of the real reason we blog -?love.

Love for the content; love for the experience; love for the audience; love for the?reason to publish.

Sometimes we need to say “Screw you, content rules”, and Just. Hit. Publish.