Rules Were Made to Be Broken

Today I read a blog post by Seth Apter of The Altered Page on blogging tips for artists and found it interesting, so I am sharing it with you.  Give it a read, I think you might find it interesting too.

One thing Seth said really stood out for me. It reads:

The idea of posting interesting content, day after day, can be daunting to many artists, who would often rather be in the studio than writing blog posts. However, if you think of your blog as an extension of your creative endeavors, the two activities can seamlessly combine.

Spot on. What a great way to think about writing, as an extension of your own work. I will share this advice with my non-writing artist friends to see if it will help them overcome their writers block.

Later in the post he advises to always include an image with your blog post. Advice I have heard often before, especially since we are visual artist, but a rule I choose to break for a variety of reasons.

First of all, I get overwhelmed from the visuals that confront me on a day to day basis. It’s like a visual vacation to see only the text and let my imagination make up the visuals, if they are even necessary.

Also, blogging in and of itself takes time. To feel like I must include an image each time overwhelms me with guilt and guilt is something I am trying to eliminate from my life.

But more importantly, it takes time to get a good image, time I don’t always have. Work is my main focus, allotting some of that time to a blog photo is not something I am willing to do. Granted, if you are selling from your blog good images would be a necessity, but I don’t fit in that category.

With my blog I am thinking out loud and learning from others in the process. At the same time I am fine tuning my own voice and growing as an individual and as an artist. But in order to find my own voice, I must listen first and foremost to myself. And sometimes that means I’ve gotta break the rules.

May you swim upstream a little today!