Geez, I Stink at This

I have noticed a disturbing trend in my blogging. Every time I build up any sort of momentum, I quit.
At the start of the summer of 2005 I had picked up a decent number of readers and was breaking into reviews. Then I took the summer off. I picked blogging up again at the end of that summer, blogged hard until summer of 2006, built up a huge readership with regular readers from all around the world, delved into difficult topics provoking interesting discussion (and in my not so humble opinion, those posts predated a lot of religious discussion that is only now beginning to hit the mainstream) then quit. Then I started again, then quit. Finally, at the end of last year (2009), I began blogging again with a focus predominantly on reviews, got a lot of hits, started to show up on review aggregate sites, quit again.
I don't know why I cannot blog consistently. It is one of the most persistent irritations of my life. Is it just not that important to me? Is my passion for blogging hot and cold? I don't think this inconsistency parallels anything else in my life, which is good, but why can't I just keep blogging?
Any ideas? I don't expect any comments because why would anyone want to put energy into checking a website that is never updated.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Yeah, but this is precisely why some of us have feed readers! ;)

I have had the same problem, but have come to the conclusion that blogging just isn't as important to me anymore as it used to be. Part of the reason, I suspect, is that I now have someone to gripe to on a moment's notice, someone to share things with almost immediately -- so the urge to get home and blog something isn't so great anymore when it's already out of my system. I also have a larger group of people who are computer savvy around me, and even though most of my friends and family know about my blog (including where it is) because I told them when I started it, there are still those family members and coworkers who don't. It gets more nerve-wracking every day (for us, anyway) to write what we want to write on the blog without worrying that it's going to be taken the completely wrong way by someone else we actually know (who knows of the blog already or who happens upon it eventually). It's happened too many times already, and it's just not worth it anymore. (I think Neal realized this before I did, since he gave up the ghost way before I finally realized the reason it was hard to blog regularly.)
Anonymous said…
Good question. Maybe it's partially because you don't have a reachable goal on often you want to blog. Maybe you can plan to post a blog once a month and keep a list of ideas you'd like to blog on throughout the rest of the month. Then you're continually thinking about it and you have a set goal to reach.

(Maybe I should take my own advice.)

; )

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

davidloti=davidloti
Now, see this is exactly why I stink. Who knows how long both of these thoughtful comments have been here? Jess, you make some good points. Now that I am ditching Facebook, I am going to contemplate whether or not to kick the blog into high gear, or keep it the same. Or go Neal's route.
Dave: Goals would be nice. I think if I had set goals in line with how many reviews I wanted to do on the blog this year, I would have followed it instead of just quitting.

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