C & C

Truth be told, when I signed up for this class, I expected it to be the easiest class I would ever take. After all, I already had a blog and updated it  regularly, so how hard would it be to just write a few more entries? As it turned out? Very hard.

Most of my entries come into being when something really strikes me, whether in a good way or a bad way. Unfortunately, since external influences are by nature in unpredictable, my typical blogging habits are highly erratic: no entries for a long stretch, only to be followed by three in a day. Of course, that didn’t quite work for a class where an entry has to be produced once every five days.

More difficult yet was to write about specific topics that I had absolutely no inclination to write about, or at most, peripherially. I would sit staring at the assignment prompt for a good while, with my mind drawing a complete blank before giving up. Frustratingly enough to, some of the things that I’d already written about for an open topic suddenly fit into a fixed category later on in the semester, but since they had already been written, couldn’t possibly double count. What was I to write about now, having already written about it before? The class would have been a lot more enjoyable if there were less restrictions on what to write, but more feedback on what about our writing worked or not, and possible other areas to explore that we might not have considered before.

Having to write about events as opposed to thoughts helped me tremendously though, since my normal blog is disproportionately full of introspective musings that make no sense to anyone else but me. This class forced me to sit down and consider my audience more, what they’d want to read, what they’d be bored by, and whether or not they would even understand what I was trying to say. I have a feeling that this class therefore did more than just help hone travel blogging skills; it improved my general writing skills.