Still Figuring Out Academic Blogging

I wanted to respond, or really build off of, Derrick's two posts "The Tool is Not the Thing (The Tool is Really Important Though" and "Kicking the 'Last Minute' Habit" (which is slightly ironic because I am posting this a little bit last minute). But, he brought up some really interesting things that I hadn't thought about. Yes, sometimes I feel totally inspired by class, or the readings, or something that I read that week and I know exactly what I am going to post about. But, sometimes I feel lost and like I need to get something up just to get something up. Though the awesome thing about academic blogging is that no matter what, it forces you to start getting rolling, churning out ideas, and hopefully eventually making it to steps two and three of the academic blogging process where you have some actual thought out ideas that are actually worth something. Though, as I was reading Derrick's posts, I was really comparing this to how it has worked out in my personal blog. Even though I have been updating it regularly for almost three years now it still isn't perfect, but I have been able to see how I have slowly found direction through just getting myself to post something which has started to shape my blog into what I classify as a "personal adventure blog/journal." I really had no idea what I was doing at first, but as I have kept blogging, I have started to find direction and discover what I really wanted to talk about. I have also discovered that the more directed my blog becomes the more readers I am getting who are interested in my adventures and ideas.

Realizing that I have already in a small way gone through this process has made the idea of finding direction in this academic blog seem less daunting. Really when I first read Prof. Burton's post I could not have been more terrified thinking that there is no way that I could eventually get from just posting, to posting something that people care about. But, I am already trying to come up with ideas, and hopefully I will come up with something good.