I recently applied to become a professional blogger for macuser.com (a blog run by macworld). As part of the application process, I was to write two articles of 250-300 words to show my qualifications as a writer. I've writen them an have since placed them on my blog.
I remember feeling stressed about creating the entries. Although I like to journal my thoughts time to time. Sitting down and coming up with something for other people to read make me nervous and I had tons of questions like : "What would I write about?", "How can I make what I wrote stand out from the dozens if not hundreds of applicants?" One doubt that really got to e ws the question about how I could do something like this about three times a week and whether or not I truely wanted too.
Now I'm not going to say i'm happy I didn't get the job because I'm not. I would love to get paidfor writing, but I don't think working for macuser at this point in time would be good for the writer in me. I want to be a good write and I feel that writing (like some many other things) needs active practice to get better. The best way to do that is want to write better (other than actually doing it).
At this point, I'm not at the level of John Gruber, John Siracusa or Shawn Blanc, but they weren't always who they are now.
I can only sit down down and write for my #1 audience and that's me.
