Writing

"...the activity or skill of writing."

To write about writing - the inception of the blogging world. It's a curious word whose definition is incredibly vague, and it cannot even be described without referring to itself. But I think there's something special about words compiled together to make something worth reading. Let's use that definition instead and you might just understand why I'm writing at all...

This week our team have been incredibly excited about a new website called Medium (more on this later) which builds collections of writing thematically. Someone called it Pinterest for blogs.

I loved it.

And I'm still there, reading.

Words on a page aren't a new idea -  we've been writing letters and reading books for centuries. Yet the blog (weblog in its fullest term, in case you were wondering) has exploded into a huge market - you can now strive to become a professional blogger; your website is your job and you are essentially an internet author.

I'm a big fan of words and I'm good at them too. To read others' compilations fills me with joy and it doesn't really matter whether it's a handwritten letter addressed to me or an article debating Christianity. I just like reading things. I always have.

We're drawn to words that interest us. Some of mine include "Christianity", "Eating Together" and "Sherlock". Discuss those things and I'm all eyes. But writing is an art form -  so give me something beautifully composed and constructed - I'll be equally gripped.

Last year part of my role was to try and persuade my fellow interns around the UK to write about their experiences for our Collective blog (go read, there's some excellent stuff up there). A few people were pretty scared about writing something and putting it on the internet, and there were plenty of excuses flying around about not being good enough, or not being able to write in an exciting way. I didn't buy it and disagreed with their excuses.

And this is why I'm a big fan of the article at the bottom of my post. It's what I'm leading up to, so check it out and be inspired. Because I think we've all got some writing potential inside us and there are a million reasons why it's enthralling and exciting and invigorating. You don't have to use big words like those. You don't even have to have done an English degree. In fact, it's probably better if you haven't.

I have a few things that I love to say a lot, and one is this: Everyone's got a story to tell. So why not write them down?

In case you weren't aware, Jo Blogs does a lot of storytelling. The stories of justice and injustice, of faith and its struggles, of daily life and real life scenarios. I don't lead an exciting life (my blog posts include dictionary definitions.... enough said) but by writing, I know that some friends have trialled vegetarianism. I know that others have donated money to charity. I know that I've been in conversations with people I barely know who remembered I didn't speak for five days and asked me why on earth I bothered.

I think telling stories can change the world. And I think writing stories down can do the same.

Why you should write   - there might be a few swear words in there. But it's still worth reading.