(From Leisa) Finding your Inner Blogger

In today's super-connected world, throw a virtual stone and you are likely to hit a blog somewhere. And there's no shortage of investing and trading blogs out there either. So, why do we blog?

Here's an excellent post from my well-read friend Leisa, snippets of which i copied here. Who knows, this may even get you started on your own blog!

"Most people think of blogging as very public affair. They would no more write a public blog than they would run naked through a crowded square. I'm writing today to encourage you to create a your own private blog. If you first shuddered upon reading that, I want you to re-read it. "Private" is the operative word. You can easily set up a blog on Blogger (and I presume other venues, but my experience is with Blogger) in such a way that it is private only to you. However, if you have Unibomber or Ted Bundy tendencies, then I would suggest to you that a private blog on the internet would not be a wise choice. Rather, I'm writing this post today for those of you who have slapped your head or kicked yourself in the tush because you had a market/trade idea that you let get away from you..."

"Is not writing the concretization of thought? If you find writing agonizing, it is with good reason. Writing is what ensnares your mind's flights of fancy and imposes order. Writing forces you to wrestle your ideas to the ground so that they become accessible, practicable and, most importantly, executable. Your writing is the score of your mind's symphony of ideas. When it written, it is memorialized and accessible to you for further tweaking. The process is not meant to be easy. The process is meant to be discomfiting enough because it forces you to make your thinking productive and actionable. No longer are your thoughts an ethereal agent... "

"I will concede that some of you are tapping your toe and saying "No way!". You are a minimalist! You care only about your charts! Like all over- zealous door-knockers, I have an answer to that objection. A blog will help you post your charts and document your thinking. You can use labels that will allow you to post just your trade journal. You can upload your annotated charts, state your trade criteria and---most importantly--detail your post mortem. Perhaps your trade is so splendiferous that you want to memorialize it in its own special category. Add a tag! By simply clicking on your labels you can easily find all of your splendiferous trades. For a trade that went woefully awry, memorialize that one too with its own tag... "

Click here for the full post.
Do check out her trading-related posts on the US markets too.