Slow Blog

Our writing is an extension of ourselves, and it represents us in absentia.  Writing well is an acquired skill that takes time and practice.

I first read about the concept of Slow Blogging on Matt Caufield’s The Slow Movement website, and I immediately resonated with the idea.  I’ve had this vague uneasiness with the blogosphere for a while, but I couldn’t really identify what it was that bothered me.  But when I read Matt Caufield and Todd Siesling’s Slow Blogging Manifestos, I understood. Perhaps my own insecurities obscured my view, but their manifestos gave me the confidence to stand up and say, “Yes, this is how I want to approach blogging.”

Our writing is an extension of ourselves, and it represents us in absentia.  Writing well is an acquired skill that takes time and practice. Although it may get easier, it always requires thought and careful observation. Free flow writing has value for perhaps helping us access different parts of ourselves, or to generate ideas and creativity, but to then take that knowledge or wisdom and craft it into a well written essay, takes dedicated skill and reflection.

In honor of that dedicated skill and reflection, I offer my own Slow Blogging Manifesto, which is a work in progress.

A Slow Blog Manifesto

1. Slow blogging chooses quality over quantity, rejecting the notion that more is better.

2. Slow blogging respects silence, seeing it not as a void but as a sacred space.

3. Slow blogging values thoughtful analysis and review, rejecting the notion that complicated issues can be expressed or communicated in 5 minute sound bites.

4. Slow bloggers know that while a picture is worth a thousand words, pictures can also be used to create great distortion. Events must be viewed in context and that requires thoughtful analysis and review.

5. Slow bloggers cultivate stillness and space in a very busy and noisy world.

6. Slow bloggers write with an awareness that what we say matters, and that our words can have a far greater impact than we can imagine.

7. Slow blogging aspires to create value in our lives and in our world, rejecting the notion that blogging is simply for increasing revenue.

To read what others have written about slow blogging, see these links:

Matt Caufield

Todd Riesling

A Slow Blog

NY Times:  Blogging at a Snails Pace