Yesterday I handed in my 3rd column at work, to put on our company site. It is not that I didn’t prepare for it: I had picked a subject I like and now a little about, had looked up more information, even interviewed a colleague from another department, but nevertheless the final text turned out to be extremely dull and formal. In fact, it was such a bad column, that the editor had to work hard on it with her red pen, to make it readable at all. I couldn’t but be slightly embarrassed, when I had to agree with everything she suggested I’d alter. The result is not disturbingly bad, mainly thanks to her, but I had obviously been blind to my own mistakes. This bothered me the rest of the day.
And after having thought about it, I think there are at least two pit holes I blindly tumbled into here. The first one is that I forgot to make the text personal. Only by showing a facet of the person behind the text, however tiny, something real and personal, does it ever work. This text never got beyond the point of mere information. I had created a Frankenstein-text; I had joined some facts that theoretically speaking could work together to make an interesting tale, but I forgot about the spark that makes the content come to life.
The biggest mistake, however, is that somehow I forgot to picture my reader.
When writing blog posts, it’s easy to picture my audience, my readers. Since my blog derived from my tweets on Twitter, the people I follow there as a whole, are my audience. You are what I have in mind when I write these posts. And since I only follow the people I find interesting and like, the audience in my mind’s eye is very diverse, ever-changing and intelligent. I take its comments seriously and learn. It pushes me to do my best, but in a benevolent way. It is never destructive or too critical, and I’m not afraid to try, fail and show my mistakes. This is, come to think of it, an excellent way to gradually find my own voice.
So, in 4 weeks time I’ll have to write another column, and next time I’ll be writing it for you.
Maai’s Creative Portfolio 
Great insights. I happen to feel the same way when writing my posts. It is a very useful means of finding your voice – and Twitter does provide a nice little built in audience!
Hi John, thank you for leaving a comment. Twitter is for me up to now the only way to build up an audience: I’m new at this. Are there other ways of finding an audience, that you use? Have a nice day. Mare
Great post.
Thank you so much for your comment! 🙂