A Blog About Why I Should Blog More

Even though my job involves a lot of report writing, making colourful presentations about assets under management, ETFs, Mutual Funds and capital ratios isn’t exactly what I would classify as writing, let alone creative writing! So yes, as I have declared a million times on this blog, I want to be a writer, and not the freelancing stuff that I do now, but real actual writing, which people would pay to read (i.e. imagine if you had to pay to access my blog, will you still do so?) Not that I ever intend to blog for money (I don’t even want to rent out space for ads), but it’s quite a food for thought.

More importantly, would I actually enjoy it if I took it up as a profession? This blog is convenient: I write when I want to or about what I want to. I have absolute freedom over the timing and the content and, as a reader, it’s your prerogative to read it. If you don’t want, go take a hike! I am not going to change my style/language/subject to cater to YOUR preferences. But everything changes if I have to write for money: It has to have a target audience, a theme, a subject in which people are interested in, a timeline before which it will still be relevant, no spelling/grammatical errors and most of all, an editor/boss who would have the right to criticize MY writing and CHANGE what I have written. Also, it would require the discipline to come up with a story about which I am least interested in but the public is (for example, Aishwariya’s pregnancy) in seven minutes AT.ANY.TIME, unlike my blog, where I post something at my leisure (when I am too bored to write about ETFs) about something as random as five things I want to do before I die (why would anybody be interested in that list anyway?)

So what if I quit a well-paying comfortable job to take up writing and then discover to my horror that I hate it? SHUDDER!

So what if what I write for money no longer goes down well with people or they get sick of it?

So what if I am simply not good enough?

And it won’t be the first time it has happened. I tend to lose interest quickly. Take swimming/dancing/economics/finance: each of which I had considered to take up seriously at some point in my life. I show immense passion, before it fizzles out fast (or I finish last in a swimming competition or fail in Accounts/International Finance)...

Hence I have decided, that for the next one month, I am going to write a post EACH day (no off days or weekends or sick leaves), even if I am too tired/too busy/too creatively challenged to ensure discipline/routine to see if it kills the fun out of writing like it does for most things. If it doesn’t, well, then I have passed the test, and irrespective of what all the aptitude/psychometric tests say, I am indeed, born to write!

And oh, please keep reading…I need all the support on this challenging endeavour!