Or, a few thoughts about blogging every day
photo credit: wallyg
As I told my friend T from Two Hands and a Road Map when she was wondering how on earth we’d come up with things to blog about every day for a month, look, it won’t be that hard. Think about it, we have to announce that we’re in a blogathon, right? And then we’ll have to do another when we’re done and you’ve got to do a halfway through post, it’s more or less obligatory, so no sweat! Half of the posts have practically already written themselves, right?
I mean, 3/31 is not exactly half but I am not one of those fussy mathematically precise people who look askance at a little rounding up. Or down. Whatever suits my purposes is how I handle those pesky fractions.
So, about the blogathon. I have enjoyed writing every day, even though I totally fudged on some of the days. Fudging is an exercise in creativity, no? As my work involves writing rather serious stuff for other people, it was a great reminder that I have to take the time to have some fun with my writing and let loose, which is one of the reasons I love blogging.
Of course, not all of the posts were home runs, but I was surprised at how good some of the ones I banged out in 20 minutes turned out to be. We all have our different approaches to blogging and mine is to look at it more as a place where you’re free to experiment and if it doesn’t work, well, there is always tomorrow. Perfectionism kills creativity; you have to keep stretching and reaching and pushing and that means sometimes, oftentimes, you’ll fall flat.
That said, I’m not sure that anyone really needs or wants to have something new from me every day and a few times a week is much more realistic for all concerned.
It wasn’t the greatest time for me to participate in a blogathon. I’ve got a lot of work to do on a few projects I’m working on and the end of the school year is always crazy. I managed to write the posts every day but had almost no time to read other blogs or to participate in the blogathon group discussions.
As for the effect on my blog so far, it’s really hard to say. I’ve given up trying to figure out how many subscribers I really have as Feedburner seems to randomly add or subtract 150 every day. My traffic has been good overall, but the newer posts haven’t received as many views as my posts usually do, probably because I’ve put next to no effort into promotion. Comments seem to be down a bit, too, and I think that not having the time to go and comment on other blogs has been a factor.
I am glad I decided to participate in the Blogathon and am confident that I’ll make it until May 31st, however it did take away time that I could be using to do other important things like participate in the blogging community and spend time doing off line things like read a book.
Which sounds like an awfully good idea, so I’ll go do that. I promise it’s not about poop, only one poop book review per month is my policy, blogathon or no.
If you’re participating in the blogathon, have you noticed any changes in your attitude towards writing? Changes on your blog? If you aren’t, any thoughts on blogging every day?
