When I write a post, I like to have a purpose and a particular thing I want share. This often hinders me from writing because it seems too difficult to try to form coherent thoughts without a clear reason for sharing. That's a bit of perfectionism, I guess, and that along with the feeling that I don't really have anything very interesting to say leads me to irregular posting .
When I started this blog nine years ago after encouragement from a friend, I didn't even really know what a blog was. I had ideas of what I wanted to write about, but I soon figured out that I wanted to tell other people's stories and those were not mine to tell. I tried all kinds of things trying to find my blog's voice. I did Food Waste Friday with the Frugal Girl and I made up recipes and shared what we ate because I saw that was what others were doing. It didn't matter that I didn't like to cook.
In addition, I wrote about musings from my kids in their younger days and did a round of posts on school memories from different friends and family. I did a series on differences between boys and girls that I had observed and participated in the yearly A-Z challenge. Also, I regularly posted encouraging sayings for myself where I would caption one of my photos and did Thankful Sunday posts to practice gratitude.
I skipped along from here to there until I started doing my Second Looks. Then I was excited. I enjoyed exploring my yard each week trying to see the flowers and not the weeds or actually trying to see the weeds as flowers. I learned all kinds of things about the plants and critters that lived there and the discoveries were exhilarating. That was when I hit my stride. But I have a different house and a different job now that take up both my physical and mental energy most days. And the blog shows that.
But, I'd like to do more and thus, my dilemma.
So what does all of this mean? Well, it means that without a clear idea in mind, I don't know what I'm writing. I sat down to write about the massive picture deletion project I've been doing and I ended up never getting to the topic, but let me see if I can wrap it up. While going through old pictures, I've also thought about old blog posts and I am going to start sharing some of those just like I am sharing some of my old pictures with family and friends.
Until next time...
Actually this post about writing without a clear plan is really fun to read. I think everyone has times when the plan either will not come together or our thoughts derail any plan.
ReplyDeleteWhat I don't have these days is any kind of regular thing I write about like you do with your joys and meals. That is part of the problem. Also, I am using the creative part of my brain more now for my job and that is satisfying some of the things I got from writing a blog. But I plan to continue especially since I rarely post on any other kind of social media.
DeleteGood to hear from you. When I think about enjoyable conversations I've had, it isn't because there has been a specific topic, necessarily. It's just fun to talk and see where the conversation turns. Don't feel pressure to come up with a regular thing (although I do like your "second look" and I love your travel posts). I like to hear what people have been up to and especially lately, with so many intense things going on in our world, it's relaxing to read what may seem mundane. Then again, I'm easily amused. ;)
ReplyDeleteWell, if you're easily amused, I'm your person. I'll see what I can do. :)
DeleteI should mention that I also love to read all the comments. I think I have developed a mental picture of what all your commenters look like based on what I have read. Is that normal??? :)
DeleteIf it's not normal, you and I are abnormal together. :)
DeleteAt first, I thought you were going to say that you are going to stop blogging, and my initial reaction was, "NO!" I am glad that you are not planning to stop. I enjoy reading your blog posts. It is fine with me if you only post about nothing in particular. If you've noticed, I tend to write mainly about what I did each day and a lot of that is very mundane stuff, especially these days! Looking forward to reading whatever you decide to share with us. :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for the encouragement. I think I may try the stream of consciousness method just to get back into the habit of posting more often.
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