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By Ravi Gummadi —

Writing in Public

In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little, yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. – Anton Ego (Ratatouille – 2007)

Writing is hard. Writing in public is harder. The running joke among my close friends is that, I switched more blogging frameworks than actual blogs I have written. And it is completely true.

There is a lot of content online, there isn’t something unique that one is going to say that hasn’t published online yet. Ideally, the work which is already published has been revised and being improved over time. What is the value of one more blog?

That is the story I told to myself for years. That though, is only part of the story. The other part is, the fear of getting something wrong and being called out. Over time, I realized that is comical. It rests on the belief that I have a passionate set of audience who actually care about what I have to say.

If I don’t need to worry about criticism, I still need to answer — what is the value? The value to readers is one part, but the disproportionate value is to me.

Onward to crossing my first milestone of more blogs than blog frameworks I used!

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