When I meet people that have something to say, and an interesting way of saying it, I encourage them to blog. But there's one big hurdle many people simply never get past: the actual writing.
That’s funny, I just read John Scalzi’s article. I have been blogging to try and become a better writer. Even though I have seen some improvement, I still get teased about my writing skills. Damn English majors.
I don’t know about anyone else, but it takes me absolutely ages to write anything (throwaway blog comments excepted :). I’m constantly revising, checking for readability, spelling, correct semantics and agonising in general. I think blogging has helped in this respect, but the payoff is that I’ve been able to write more, not write more productively.
Recommended for improving writing: a href="http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2006/01/01/swear_a_bit.html"http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2006/01/01/swear_a_bit.html/a
Joel Spolsky talks about practicing writing. He said he even takes some course just to force himself to write…
I know I dislike writing, only because it is still in the “it hurts to do it” phase… and it isn’t yet into “habit”. I am working on that though!
Brian’s hints for revising are superb;
i would take issue with only one of his recommendations, that “bullet lists” should be turned into paragraphs. i find bullet lists to be great at conveying information and believe them to be underused.
Yeah! 
Nice post! I agree, avoidance is not an excuse, it does not give permission. And thank you for the quick peek at my post, too! Heather
Hmmm, i have the exact_opposite problem: I can’t speak as well as I write.
The benefit to writing is one is given time to think through, reflect, review, re-evaluate before finalising. Spoken words, once departed from the mouth, cannot return.
Well, i have been blogging for three years now, just to improve my writing style. With English not being my mother tongue, I realized that one should know how to express his thoughts in this Universal Language
I also realized that, If you want to write well, READ WELL. I read a lot of blogs like Jeff’s which helps me improve.
Thank you Jeff, for writing this blog
-Viki
I have a great idea for a first blog article. It’s about the debate over implicit typing, particularly the VAR keyword in C#. Although it’s been over three years since it was introduced, people are still arguing about it, namely the development team at the company I work at. So stay tuned for my thoughts.