People ask how I can write everyday.
Writing is the easy part. Writing poorly is even easier. I have found the editing is the most difficult part of blogging daily.
I have published a post-a-day for over 100 straight days now. For the most part, it is just stream-of-consciousness thoughts tracking the flow of life as an elected official, responding to what I hear in my podcast library or a fleeting thought that crosses my mind during my morning walk.
This blog has provided a public space for me to work all these things out. Normally politicians shy away from doing these exercises in public, but not me. It is important that people see I am a real person, with the same challenges as everyone else trying to balance expectations, burdened with ethical dilemmas, and at the same time trying to be a good partner, husband, father and teammate.
Over the course of my blog-a-day adventure I received pleasant notes from reader’s highlighting my grammatical errors. So, I published this post about the writing and editing process. Following that post I got an email from the Green Party office letting me know a volunteer named Celia offered to help me with editing.
I write and Celia makes it readable ????
I accepted Celia’s offer. It’s a pretty simple process, I email her my latest piece and it comes back a couple of hours later greatly improved. Initially, she just fixed the grammatical problems, but now she is helping me with structure as well. I am thankful to be learning along the way and I hope the quality of my work is improving. That’s between Celia and me.
Thank you Celia! As she will have seen this well before you get to read it, she will have likely helped strengthen my level of gratitude to her. Or at least helped me express it more clearly.
Andrew, Sonia and I are the public faces of the BC Green Party but there are many incredible people who help our success. From volunteer community members and riding association leaders, Green Party staff to constituency and legislative staff, we three MLA’s are very little without their effort, love and support. This work is equal parts personal confidence and confidence in the people around you. Trust and teamwork are critical ingredients for success in this business.
So thank you to all the people who patiently work with me, to help me improve. I am honoured to have you chipping away at my rough edges.
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