The one time I really struggle with blogging is when I've stopped doing it for a bit. A few weeks ago, I took a week off. And I ended up almost completely disconnecting from social media for that week. I used my computer to play games, but that was about it. I switched off from the web, from feeds, from Twitter, from the works.Obviously, I walked back into the office to face a vast, vast pile of work - the curse of being a one man team, with no-one to delegate to. And so it took me a few days to get on top of that, and start thinking about blogging again. And then I started struggling. I have this urge that, if I haven't posted for a while, I need to restart with something significant. That, of course, is nonsense. If you think about the idea of blog as conversation, if you haven't talked to somebody for a while, you don't put off meeting them for a drink, or giving them a call, just because you have nothing of huge significance to impart. No, just just give them a ring, say hello, and start discussing the first things that come into your minds.
And that's exactly what this is. The first thing in my mind. And hopefully it'll break my bloggers' blog...
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Sounds all too familiar. This time around I wrote one and a half post during the wknd as I knew yesterday's magazine deadline would keep me from blogging at least until today, let's see if that breaks the spell of procastrination-perfectionism that comes over me when I've been away from blogging too long - if only I finally can find a spare minute to blog soon.
It's funny - one of the things that I always teach journalists is that you should blog a thought or link as soon as you can after you have it.
And I'm terrible at doing so. Do as I say, not as I do. :)
Looks like it did work!
I know exactly what you mean - currently fighting my way out of yet another lull in blogging. Best cure is prevention, one suspects: not stopping in the first place :-)
I think Andrew Sullivan put it well in his essay in the Atlantic (http://snurl.com/6xhab ): "...as Matt Drudge told me when I sought advice from the master in 2001, the key to understanding a blog is to realize that it’s a broadcast, not a publication. If it stops moving, it dies. If it stops paddling, it sinks."
Good quote.
And it think people from traditional media are in constant danger of slipping back into the publication mindset.
I so know what you mean Adam.
I am about to go off line for the first time in six months while I go on holiday for a week. It is both scary and exciting - scary, because I cannot imagine not checking in on my blog or Twitter, but exciting because it will be so nice to escape the dicatorship of digital. I bet return resfreshed.
Wish me luck!
I had a 100% offline break last year - staying somewhere you couldn't even get a mobile phone signal.
It did me the world of good. Enjoy your break. :)