Blaugust came and I started blogging again. I did daily posts for the month of August but when Blaugust stopped I kept going, right up until today.
And I’m tired. It’s time to take a break and recharge. I have been doing daily posts because an object in motion tends to stay in motion whether it is having fun or not. I had sort of hoped I’d form the habit of daily posts and I’d enjoy writing them, but that hasn’t happened. It still feels like a chore to blog every day.
Additionally, I need to work on self-improvement in terms of technical skills. In order to find time to do that I have to either give up the daily blog post, or give up gaming, or give up spending time with the family. Only so many hours in the day. Obviously not going to set family aside, and gaming is my primary form of relaxation and one of the things that keeps me sane. Plus I mostly blog about gaming so if I stop gaming I wouldn’t have anything to blog about anyway!! 🙂
So, taking a break. Hopefully it won’t stretch out to a year-long break! I just kind of feel like now I’m in the habit of daily posts and I need to break that habit. Once the ‘streak’ is broken I hope I’ll feel less pressure. We’ll see.
I can’t honestly say for sure if blogging is still for me. I’m not really happy with the quality or the content of my posts. A few of them were OK but most just read like filler to me. I don’t feel like 5 weeks(ish) of daily blogging is making me a better writer; I kind of think the quality of my posts has dropped, if anything. Yesterday I find a post in my drafts about my dog and after reading it, it didn’t really seem any worse than posts I wrote and re-wrote and tweaked. (So I published it, what the hell.)
Anyway I need to step back, think about things and decide what my next steps are. I may be back day after tomorrow and this may turn out to be the last post before the site shuts down. I’m just not really sure yet. But that’s what the break is for…to figure things out.
I definitely WILL keep reading other blogs though. That is a habit I’ve developed and that I definitely AM taking a lot of joy from. So the rest of you….please keep writing!
Until next we meet, be excellent to each other.
Your blog is one of my favorites to read and I was very happy to see you return to blogging. I’m a big advocate of taking breaks and not forcing yourself to carry on if it’s not enjoyable but also of not setting the bar too high. I’d always endorse banging out a few words about whatever you feel like and putting them up for the hell of it. This isn’t a test or a competition or even a job – it’s just chatting with people, really.
As for what to post about, as a reader I increasingly find that with quite a few bloggers i’ve been reading for a while it’s the non-gaming posts that are the most satisfying. Your post about Lola was delightful – I’d bet plenty of people enjoyed it a lot. And I’m not even a dog person (it’s Mrs. Bhagpuss who wants a dog – I’m just going along with it!)
Thanks! That means a lot. I honestly feel better about things already. Just a day off (I actually wrote this post yesterday morning) and I’ve got some ideas rattling around in my head already.
I’d encourage doing some thinking about what you might want out of your blog, and what you’d be happy to look back on.
Some people do daily posts, very casual, very throwaway, and it acts like a kind of diary or discipline-building habit. That works very well for them.
Me, I found I enjoyed my own posts with a little higher quality bar, so after some experimentation, I tend to just chill and play games and wait for some kind of point or revelation to hit me. Something odd or cute or rant-inducing that makes me want to share it, and base a post around that. It’s no way to build regular readership, especially since my writing style trends toward what can only be politely called “an essay,” but I enjoy the end product.
No harm experimenting with formats and post frequency and developing your own style of post. People who like it will read you. To heck with the rest. If we wanted profit out of this, we’d be on Youtube and Twitch. Blogging is a hobby, a labor of love.
I kind of use Twitter for the casual throwaway stuff. I just need to guard against waiting months for a revelation good enough to act on. 🙂
Thank you for the feedback and thoughts!