Cory Doctorow on blogging

I would really like to blog on a more consistent basis. And I think Cory Doctorow’s approach is a good one:

These repeated acts of public description adds each idea to a supersaturated, subconscious solution of fragmentary elements that have the potential to become something bigger. Every now and again, a few of these fragments will stick to each other and nucleate, crystallizing a substantial, synthetic analysis out of all of those bits and pieces I’ve salted into that solution of potential sources of inspiration.

That’s how blogging is complimentary to other forms of more serious work: when you’ve done enough of it, you can get entire essays, speeches, stories, novels, spontaneously appearing in a state of near-completeness, ready to be written.

In other words, use blogs as a public Content Management System from which you connect and synthesize, rather than as a publishing platform per se. Otherwise, it is simply too much effort for work that will simply scroll away into nothing.