Five things from five years of blogging
I recently recorded a short video with my friend and Imperfectly Done collaborator, Matthew Bellringer, during which we talked about regularly producing content.
Matthew has over 80 episodes of his live podcast Delightful Dissent (many of which are here), which poked me to double-check how long I’ve been blogging.
And I was astonished to discover that I’ve blogged every month, bar one, for the last five years.
Bloody hell.
I guess I can say that I’m a regular blogger now.
To mark this accidental landmark, here are five things I’ve learned or discovered along the way:
Write for you
I’ve never had a plan for what I might write about. There has never been a content calendar, a social media scheduler, or even a fixed goal to reach a certain landmark or increase my media presence.
I rarely share my posts directly, other than in my monthly newsletter, which goes out to [counts number of people on both hands, pretty much]. I make so little effort to share my posts that I’m genuinely astonished when someone tells me they’ve read something of mine.
Sure, there’s a body of work here. If someone had no idea who I am, they could take a little wander through the posts and get a sense of me (and some dear souls have done just that).
But I’m reminded of an insight the author of The Connection Playbook, Andy Chaleff, said in a recent interview: that he writes for himself, to make his own thoughts clearer.
That’s why I write, too. In a way, having other people read it is almost accidental.
You won’t always know what to write about
If I had a penny for the number of times I have sat facing a blank screen with an equally blank mind .. well, I wouldn’t be able to afford that much on account of inflation, but still, it would definitely be enough to buy a chocolate bar of SOME description.
I know that some people, ORGANISED people, keep a list of potential post ideas. Yeah, I envy them, too.
But you know what? Given the consistency of blogging I’ve accomplished so far (albeit somewhat haphazardly, at times), being open to what’s alive in me when I sit down to write seems to have worked out so far.
I think it’s more important to get into the practise of writing something, rather than sticking to a plan that doesn’t light you up when it comes time to do it. It may not work for everyone, but frequency over strict focus seems to have kept me going.
Life is going to get in the way. That’s okay
You know what? I have a confession to make. I started this blog post in the first week of November, and I’m only coming back to it in the last week of the month.
In the intervening time, I’ve swung between exhaustion and overwhelm. It’s often felt like I’m in a swimming pool, walking towards the deep end, with my feet no longer touching the pool’s floor. Which, as someone who can’t swim, has been really unnerving.
Sometimes a monthly blog post is going to be at the start of a month, and sometimes it’s going to be at the end. And that’s just the way it is sometimes. Better to do something imperfectly than to not do it at all.
Having a goal is useful, but not if it causes stress
And on that theme… My goal has always to write my blog post on the first of the month. And I think it’s fair to say that that’s, uh, slipped somewhat.
I used to beat myself up about posting a day late at the start of my five years of blogging, even though the timing of it affects absolutely no-one.
I’ll be honest, I would LOVE to get back to blogging at the start of the month again. Is it too soon to talk about New Year Resolutions, folks?? But not if it means that I’m putting needless pressure on myself to do something that no-one else notices.
“Forget the noun, do the verb”
It’s only in the last couple of years that I’ve felt comfortable to reclaim (ish) the title of being a “writer”. But I’m also aware of the burden that can come with giving oneself a description like that. Who am I, if I’m not doing ‘X’, etc?
My good friend, creativity coach Mark Steadman, recently shared with me this video of Austin Kleon.
Just like his books on creativity, Steal Like An Artist and Show Your Work!, Kleon makes 10 good points about being creative, and one of them is the name of this point
Do I think of myself as a writer or content maker? No. Do I think it would be helpful to think of myself in those terms? Right now, no.
Do I think it’s helpful to keep on writing?
Absolutely.
No matter how messy, vulnerable, or late it may be.
.
Photo by Min An: https://www.pexels.com/photo/person-using-typewriter-1448709/
