Bad Blogger

 

I’ve come to a difficult realization.

I am a Bad Blogger.

When February began I decided, with more enthusiasm than sense, to commit to doing February’s NaBloPoMo challenge. That is, to write a blog post every day in the month of February.

I thought it seemed doable. There was a general theme that we could choose to use or not, and no other rules except to blog every day.

So, even though I was still working on Monster Project, I went ahead and threw my hat in the ring.  

 

As of and including this post, I have done 11 posts in 18 days. That’s a very good record for me, but it’s far off the pace I’d committed myself to.

So what went wrong?

I should have been more realistic about Monster Project, for one thing, but I thought somehow I could squeeze in some short posts, use photos for a couple of days, sort of make do until the project was done…but that didn’t happen.

My biggest problem is that I just can’t write fast—or short. What I thought would be short posts ended up taking more time than I figured on. My second problem is needing too much time to figure out what to write about. When I started, I had a few ideas that I thought could get me through the first week, then I trusted in coming up with more. But once I jotted down a few notes about the ideas, I felt hamstrung about how to develop them. In the little time I had each day, I just couldn’t think things through well enough.

Maybe I just don’t have enough to say and don’t want to clutter up the blogosphere with a lot of trivia.

So I’m withdrawing from NaBloPoMo. I want blogging to be fun and not feel pressured by it. However, I am enjoying blogging again, so I’m not bowing out completely—just “downsizing.” There are still two weeks left in the month, and I’d like to be able to post four or five more times. Maybe I can make that.

I confess that I’ve been a Bad Blogger in other ways, too—that is, in supporting other bloggers. I haven’t been keeping up with all of your blogs, and I feel bad about that. Maybe there should be a “National Blog Reading Month” so that we could all catch up on what our friends and fellow bloggers are writing? In any case, I am trying now to do more visiting and commenting on other people’s blogs, because I really do appreciate the support I get from the community and want to give that back.

In keeping with the February NaBloPoMo theme, I’m taking a new perspective on my blogging life; I’m knowing my limitations. Sure, it’s good to try to stretch your limits sometimes, but we also have to realize when it’s detrimental to other things in our lives. So my new perspective on blogging is:

 

Have fun with it.

 

Don’t feel pressured by it.

 

And give back to fellow bloggers!