Matt Gemmell:

Instead of a blog, let your site be a site. Or a journal. An online anthology. Your collected works. Your essays, to date. Your body of writing. A blog is a non-thing; it’s the refusal to categorise what you produce, and an implicit opt-in to the disappointing default.

Instead of posts, you have articles. Pieces. Essays. Stories. Poems. Briefs. Tutorials. White papers. Analyses. Even thoughts, if you like. Actual works, crafted and presented for the reader, instead of just being punctured by a push-pin, and affixed to a bulletin board, beside lost dog, and roommate wanted.

Instead of posting, you’re publishing. If you were a blogger, maybe you’re a journalist.

Instead of blogging, you’re writing.

Try those words on for size. See how they feel.

Matt's article on his disdain of the terminology surrounding blogging is an absolute must-read. I know I needed it. As I've alluded to recently, I've been wallowing in a lot of doubt as a writer. Matt's words were a great reminder to keep writing.

I remember very distinctly a few years ago when I decided I wanted this site to be more than a blog. When I traded blog in the navigation for articles. When I started calling myself a writer.

My readership is not fantastically large. But it isn't insignificant, either. But the number of eyeballs reading these words does not detract from the value of my words. I greatly value the time you take to read this site, dear reader, but to be frank, I'm not necessarily writing for you. I'm mostly writing for me.

I encourage you to read all of Matt's article. It is excellent. He is a very gifted writer. And finally, I want to leave you today with a final quote from his passage, one you should jot down in a notebook, or Evernote, or wherever you keep quotes to look back and reflect upon.

Language is a surgical tool in the right hands, and a blunt instrument otherwise.