I’ve had a little bloggy break this past week; my brain and computer running on similarly lacklustre levels, both needing an overhaul and testing my patience. Here are my reflections on @stellaorbit’s #blogvember challenge, where I successfully posted every day for 30 days in November. I finished something!
To say that I needed a sense of creative accomplishment of late is a desperate understatement. That part of me has felt very neglected and bogged down under the weight of the pointy end of the year and family’s prioritised needs. I jumped on this challenge, (together with @FatMumSlim’s #fmsphotoaday challenge) with gusto. I dedicated myself to the end goal and had a couple of close scrapes, but all in all I reached the finish line on both. A glorious sensation.
It’s a feeling I had in a similar (but much smaller way) about an art/photography/design course I did a decade ago; under pressure at the time, but to this day happily surprised with what I was able to turn out by the end. I know I need a structure and someone/something bigger than myself to answer to, in order to perform.
Concerns: I was a bit worried about being able to come up with ideas on a daily basis, but this soon proved unfounded*, as the more I posted and got into the swing of daily writing, the more ideas I seemed to get- a most welcome and pleasant surprise! They weren’t just shitty filler posts either, if I may say so myself; I even raised the bar (see below). The biggest problem I had was the time factor. Working around family commitments and the oft-crashing ‘puter was frustrating, especially when that meant scraping posts in very late at night, annoying my grumbling Mr with my ridiculous bed times.
The Glittery Positives: You know what else it did? It made me feel like a ‘legitimate blogger’- whatever that is. The commitment to writing every day gave me a real sense of achievement, and that beautiful surprise of having ideas keep popping up each day was very affirming. I managed a couple of posts I was prouder of; both departures from my usual stream-of-tangential-consciousness style. Given that I started blogging to (first locate, then) exercise my writing muscles, this was a fantastic personal outcome. If you missed these, here they are:
Cup Day Tragics
When There are No Words
My stats grew, comments increased and I enjoyed a more ‘connected’ relationship with readers. It was great. So…
In summary: a great exercise for so many reasons but (once again, time-sucking blog and pc tech issues notwithstanding) I don’t know that the work involved in daily blogging is something I would say is worth my while. At least while I am a personal blogger and not sourcing any income for my efforts.
The next step is a long overdue blog upgrade and make over. If perhaps a new machine were to speed up my incredibly s-l-o-w posting times, who knows- I might be re-enthused to fly with this some more.
* (In the short term at least- I’m certainly not saying this would happen indefinitely!)
{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
A whole month would wear me out I think. I did eight days in a row last month with giveaways, and found that tough. Maybe cause I had sponsored posts to write?
Well done though on making it though. That’s amazing
I agree Jess, following a brief, rather than what’s bouncing around in your own head would be much harder to keep up on an ongoing basis. I reckon if you had free choice of content, it would’ve been a lot easier for you to knock out. Thanks for your encouragement. I may do it another time
Wowzers! Every day? That’s quite a commitment and yay for you for dedicating to it. I can see there would be many positives to it, but I would struggle to juggle my time mostly and knowing me I probably would have moments of guilt. My hubbie would definitely develop a jealousy thing for my ‘puter and blog so I would have to play sneaky blogging
That is definitely a third factor- the partner factor. It’s not just the ideas and the time, it’s the couple time at the end of the day that really suffers.
Overall it sounds like it was a really positive experience for you. Whilst I haven’t actually started yet, I’ve decided to write every day, not post every day, but just write. Exercise the muscle. See what I come up with. Hopefully I will surprise myself!
Overall positive, definitely- in the short term. I have absolutely no idea if I could do it all the time like some others I see managing quite well! Don’t know how Woogie does it, for instance.
That is awesome, well done! It’s such hard work, posting so frequently. If you were to just slap up a block of text then not so much, but to structure and present a post that looks good and reads well is time consuming. I was running on about 5 a week for a while but I found it left me no time to look after my kids! But I guess a lot of that time also went towards sharing the post and making sure people saw it. Exhausting. Now I’ve gone back to work 3 days a week so there’s no chance of keeping up the 5 posts a week, not if I want to have time to read any one else’s posts!
I agree, it *can* be exhausting to spruik multiple times daily. There are more and more apps out there becoming available (some paid) to do this for you though. Once again, another thing I have to find time to research!
I would love to try this but I just don’t see how I could ever find the time.
It was good to hear about the positives and how this made you feel. Thanks for sharing.
I seriously want to know how much time I will save when my limping blog and computer are upgraded! (Whenever that is) Right now it’s nothing short of painful.
how wonderful that you completed the challenge! I used to blog almost daily before children but now can just about manage 4 times a week. I don’t think it’s that hard to find topics to write about.. it’s about finding the time!
Ai @ Sakura Haruka
Wow, how long could you blog (almost) daily for? My goodness, I see people do it, but I just don’t know *how*!
Good for you. It’s a hard month to attempt something like that. Men just have to grow a moustache. Pff.
; {)
I tried doing this for December but have already failed. It’s nice to see your positives for it though!