When I started this blog I told myself that I was going stay on topic. I've strayed a couple of times but blogging about blogging was always very high on the off-topic list.
Then I read How To Achieve Ultimate Blog Success In One Easy Step by Jeff Atwood. He really hits the nail on the head about the motivation and benefits of blogging. So now I'm forced to break my own rules again. [That's actually one of the nice things about having your own blog, you get to make up your own rules -- or break them -- anytime you want.] If you have an interest in starting a blog, read his post and the many links.
From his Fear of Writing post:
It's like exercise. No matter how out of shape you are, if you exercise a few times a week, you'll inevitably get fitter. And if you write a small blog entry a few times every week, you're bound to become a better writer.
One of the reasons I started blogging was because I've always wanted to be a better writer. Whenever I read a great article or book I'm always envious of the writer's talent. It's like watching an athlete: you know how great they are by how easy they make extraordinary feats look. I will never be a superstar (like Coding Horror), but I have so much room for improvement it's a good bet that I'll get better.
Writing is hard. At least it is for me. You might think that you could use some of your programming techniques and skills to facilitate writing. I haven't found that to be the case at all. The whole flow of writing is completely different than programming. When you develop code you're typically implementing multiple trains of interconnected logic in parallel. In order to do this you're jumping back and forth between those pieces of logic.
When you blog, the topic you're discussing may have distinct points or categories, but writing about it requires a single stream of coherent thought. Not only that, you have to be able to write understandable English sentences. All of this is no easy task for an Engineer. Thank goodness for spell-checkers anyway.
Besides the writing part, technology blogging is also a challenge. For some, just finding unique topics can be difficult. This seems to be especially true for programming blogs, mostly because there are so many of them. Fortunately, within my areas of interest I have many topics to discuss that aren't already being covered by hundreds of others.
Actually, it would be nice to have some more company, so I'll ask the same question as Jeff:
So when was the last time you wrote a blog post?