What I’ve learned so far from blogging
Though I've failed to write as often as I'd like, I've learned a lot from the blogging process so far.
It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything, but I haven’t been totally idle. I’ve managed to write bits and pieces here and there. Nowhere near what I want to achieve, but I’m getting something done. I actually wrote this post a while ago—way back on Oct. 6—but I've just been stuck in procrastination land so badly that I couldn't even find the time or energy to edit and post it until now.
Even though I haven’t written much on my site and can’t seem to get a proper schedule together, I’ve learned a lot. Here’s what the blogging process has taught me so far:
1. I don’t have the time or energy to achieve all that I want with the site
This was something I knew could be an issue early on, and it’s definitely been confirmed. You just can’t make writing a viable side gig if you have a full-time job and family commitments, unless you have people able to help out on a fairly regular basis. Not such an easy thing these days, with lockdowns and other COVID-19 restrictions. The solution is to either ask for more help or scale back the amount of writing I want to do on the side.
2. I’m still figuring out exactly what I want to write about and what I want the site to be
Whenever I’ve had issues with writer’s block in the past, I find what helps most is having a central idea or lead, as journalists would say, to get things going. Since I still have no idea what I want this site to be or do (is it a blog, is it a place to dump my fiction work? Is it a photo essay?), it’s hard to move forward. I’m pulled in too many directions trying to decide which part I want to work on.
3. I’ve only set a general schedule but haven’t taken the time to actually write it down, set reminders and enforce it
It’s one thing to set a goal of writing at least 15-30 minutes a day, another to actually do it. You need to resist the urge to just zone out in front of the TV each night, walk yourself over to your writing area, set a timer, sit and write, then edit and post. Having a written schedule, or at least a reminder in your calendar is also critical to stay organized and keep writing even when it’s the last thing you feel like doing.
4. I still don’t really feel passionate about anything
This may not be entirely true, but I’m finding it hard to enjoy doing anything lately. Not sure if that means I’m depressed, or if I’m just done with writing and my line of work in general. Maybe it is time to learn something different and that will get me unstuck. Or I just need to keep returning to what I liked to write about when I first started to write. In general, you need to find something that you can’t shut up about and write about that, but I haven’t had a whole lot to talk about lately apart from not being able to write, and that is getting old.
5. I don’t have a structure/outline for what I’m writing, which has helped me overcome writer’s block in the past
For all of my posts so far, I’ve just written whatever comes into my head, without any plan, which isn’t always a bad thing, but can make it hard to write consistently and coherently. I find I just end up devolving into venting, which I don’t think anyone wants to read about, and while it might be therapeutic for me at first, eventually gets tiresome. It’s probably why I’m finding it hard to stay motivated and keep writing.
I read an article in The Writer about how first person often comes across as whiny, and it made me think of my blog. Though, in my defense, most blogs are often written in the first person because they are a digital log of something the writer is doing. Of course, they don’t need to be written in the first person. Maybe a switch to second person or another perspective would help me.
Back to creating a structure or outline—I need to figure out what I really want to write about before I can get any kind of plan together. And writing about whatever I want while messing around with my site doesn’t seem to be helping me figure that out at the moment.
6. I haven’t done a good job of setting goals for the site (they are not SMART goals)
So far, all I’ve come up with are some vague goals for the site, so they’re not specific. I haven’t looked at how often other writers post or come up with anything to measure my goals against. The specific goals I have had—write a short story every month and a blog post every one to three days—aren’t achievable because I haven’t written a single short story and I only managed to post every one to three days for a limited time. But, those goals were relevant to getting me to write and time-based (or timely, according to some websites), so didn’t completely fail on fitting the SMART criteria.
My revised goal of just doing any kind of writing for 15-30 minutes a day also didn’t work out, even though it was also relevant and time-based, probably because it wasn’t specific enough either. So my goals need further refining.
7. It may just not be the time to write on the side or run a website
Another article I read in The Writer (not to keep name-dropping) talked about when it might be time to walk away from writing. It mentioned a very successful freelancer who decided she was done and became a bartender instead (though who knows how that’s going with COVID). Maybe I’m at that point and I’m burned out on writing, or it’s just not my time right now with everything I have going on. It’s hard not to feel like a failure when you decide to quit something, but if you keep banging your head against the wall and are getting nothing done, no matter what you try, you sometimes need to take a break. It doesn’t necessarily need to be permanent, just until you feel like coming back to writing again.
The idea of walking away from writing makes me sad, so I’m not sure I’m ready to stop just yet. I think I need one, fun writing project to focus on and ignore all my other dumb ideas.
Not to bring up The Writer yet again—they do such a good job writing for writers that it's like they've wire-tapped my brain—but their January 2021 issue had a good point that your website or passion projects still need to have some sort of gain. It doesn't necessarily need to be monetary, but you should still get something out of it. Just doing it for fun isn't always enough.
Maybe a goal of writing one fiction or non-fiction piece per month to sell would make sense. I've just been so locked into the fact that I have a full-time job that I hadn't considered freelancing on the side. But if I only do articles that I'm interested in and care about and only do as many as is feasible, I don't see why it should be impossible. Lots of people do it. Now, off to work out a schedule and some more specific goals!