To blog or not to blog...

A friend who knew I was considering creating a writing blog sent me the following link today, to Robin Hobb's blog:

http://robinhobb.com/rant.html

It's a wonderful post, and she makes a lot of good points. It is easy to let a blog distract you from writing. But that's true of many other things, as well. At least for me.

There are days when I want to write, when the words and ideas flow, and I enjoy the whole process.

And then there are the days when nothing works, and I try one thing after another, writing and rewriting a single scene or sentence, hoping I'll stumble onto something that pleases me, something that feels right. On those days, I can be distracted by flossing my teeth, let alone blogging.

I've heard writers say you have to write whether you feel like it or not, that discipline is necessary whether it's going well and you feel inspired, or not. And I think there's some truth to that. Certainly, published authors writing to deadline have to be disciplined regardless of how things are going.

But on the other hand, sometimes I fight and fight and finally give up, bloodied and bowed by the process...only to have the answer come when I've gone away to do something else. How does that work? What's the relationship between discipline on the one hand and giving yourself mental space enough for ah-ha moments to break through on the other?

I don't know. But I do know that sometimes blogging about writing can soothe that panic that I'm never going to have another ah-ha moment, that the story is stupid, or lost, or whatever the fear of the day is. It's not a substitute for actually writing the story. But I think it can be part of the process.