Benefits of Opinionated Blogging?

I've been missing something in my life.

What may this be? Blogging for the hell of it.

Since 2004 I have had blogging outlets for my highly opinionated, personal ideas and venting needs. Way back when I totally ran with the Xanga crowd. I owe Xanga a lot, as it is what inspired me to learn a bit of HTML... or at least the structure of how it works. At the time it helped me with a better understanding in my computer science courses (yeah... I totally changed my major after that). Once the Xanga fad wore off, I transitioned into Myspace's blog.

Myspace had the best blog system I have seen, by far. You selected the category of the individual blog you made and it was a competitive game to get on that category's top 10 of the day. I won't lie, I totally took part in the mayhem. If you could get enough comments in your category to make the top 10, you in turn scored tons of hits.

Back then blogging was something different than it is now - or at least for me. It was an outlet. It was a tool to provide me a means to just write, whatever I felt the need to say. Readers or no readers, I had a message to get across.

Contrary to popular belief, I am more multi-faceted than my business-focused ponderings, found on my main blog here. I am a graduate student. I am a geek. I enjoy horrible movies and tacky cute animal pictures (don't worry, I won't bombard you with those... yet).

There is something else that blogging free-handed taught me: how to talk to people in the first person. Here I need not worry about SEO best practices, formal writing, etc. As long as I can write to secure interest and fulfill my own needs the world is mine for the taking. For years, as I was finding my grip in this world of late-night blogging I began to get a feel for what works and what doesn't. An experimenter's playground, per-se. I believe having a definitive voice in your writing is single-handedly one of the most important aspects, carrying over to all platforms.

In 2009 the J School presented me with an award for copywriting. At the time I couldn't understand why, as I didn't (and still don't) care to be a copywriter. I have even turned down an interview for a copywriting position in Pittsburgh because it does not match my professional interests. So why the hell would I randomly win an award for copywriting?

Now I understand.

I can attribute it to my many years blogging. No, it is not a special talent that I have... one that I can turn on and crank out the most creative copy you have ever seen. Instead, it is rather my succinct, yet absolute voice.

Graduate school has pushed many students to lose their voice; I fear the same could happen to me. This semester I am taking courses in research, journalism history and a combined law and ethics seminar class. A recipe for writing disaster? Well, hopefully this blog will help provide an antidote.