I’m pondering why it seems so easy to pump out blog posts today, the day after TestRetreat and the day before CAST 2013. Here are my first impressions:

It’s easy to forget that people are interested in what we have to say when we are mired in the everyday routine of our lives.

It’s easy to be afraid of what people will think and that we might be “wrong” or embarrass ourselves in “print” if we post our ideas. (Yes, Michael Larsen, this one is thanks to you. :-))

It’s hard to remind ourselves that someone has to start the conversation and that most others are just as hesitant to go first.

I’m old enough to remember when everything that would be printed had to be reviewed, so it feels risky to put something out there without sending it by a bunch of people first to see what they think. (The good part of that is that the reviewers always make what I have to say better, but sometimes we just need to “do it” (again, thanks to TestRetreat for the “just start writing” idea) to build the habit of speaking up.)

In “The Artist’s Way”, Julia Cameron proposes doing daily pages, where you write three pages every day about what is on your mind. It’s easy to get in the habit of being quiet and reserved, but this kind of writing “behind the scenes” gets us used to expressing our thoughts. That makes it easier to make the jump to blogging by making writing something more approachable and gets us used to hearing our own voice.

In this case, hearing lots of other testers speak their minds yesterday about a number of topics that mattered to them helped remind me that I have a voice and that blogging really isn’t that scary.

What is keeping you from posting or helps you overcome your hurdles to speak your voice?