I hadn’t planned on doing another one of these status check-ins until closer to my sixth month of blogging, but recent happenings have gotten me thinking, and it’s as good a time as any for some navel-gazing.
I will preface this by saying that this post is not meant to be a “poor me” type of angst-fest, another chance for me to be too hard on myself, or even a cathartic rant. I am merely trying to look at things in an objective manner. I don’t feel like I’m in the middle of a Funk right now, although things may be trending that way; this is one of my attempts to forestall that. When I write these posts, I write them mostly for myself; writing has a way of laying bare my innermost thoughts to my higher mind. Now, without further ado, let’s make the first incision.
I’ve missed a couple daily posts lately. When I started this blog, I had every intention of writing every day. I saw the opportunity for an outside motivator, one which could goad me on when my internal drive fell flat. But that hasn’t happened. I will say that most missed posts were not from malice or apathy (actively choosing not to write on a given day). Most of the time I’ve just forgotten at the end of a busy day, and by the time I remember I’m in bed trying to get to sleep. But while I’ve been posting almost every day, I haven’t been writing as regularly as I intended. When I have a buffer, I find myself drifting closer to apathy: “I don’t have to write today, I’ll just write two posts tomorrow.” Of course the second post doesn’t happen the next day, and any buffer I may manage to shore up doesn’t last long.
I also find myself less motivated to write, almost obligated, even. I will readily admit I didn’t have a plan for this blog at the start, but I had all sorts of grandiose things I could do: serial and short-form fiction, movie and game reviews, pithy commentary on the world we live in, et cetera. Instead, most of my posts seem to be venting, since those don’t take much effort to write. But even then, I find myself writing them as an afterthought: I’ll get home from work around 2, and by the time I get around to writing it’s after 3h30. Even then, I’ll postpone my “break” as long as possible, cranking out a post at the seemingly last minute. I did a similar thing in school, where my ego would use the excuse of a time limit to justify the lack of perfection.
These two things, the missed updates and the growing lack of motivation, seem to me to be signs of a potential burnout situation. I’ve burned out before: after taking 19 credits my first trimester of college (I switched from a dual science major to majoring in French); and almost again in grad school, I took 15 credits as well as worked full time my first semester (I have no idea how I did it). But that also means I’ve gotten better at reading the warning signs. In my opinion, something is going to have to give if I’m to keep my passion for writing.
And I think I know just the thing. The problem with writing every day is you don’t get any break (shocking, I know). As a result, I’ve come to worry too much about the production of writing that I don’t have any time or energy to worry about the craft; I’ve prioritized quantity (or regularity) over quality.
So I’m going to take a day or two off. According to my stats page, not many people read this blog on the weekends. That makes Saturday and/or Sunday the logical choices. From here on until I change my mind yet again, I will not be posting on weekends. If I feel the urge to write, those posts will go into the buffer, but I will not plan on writing during the weekend. I will endeavor to write every weekday. A regular time each day would be ideal, but I am reluctant to make an engagement I can’t keep.
Screw that. A regular time is ideal, so I will put it into writing: I will write at 2pm every weekday. That should give me time enough to get home from work, but would be before I start “decompressing” (read: surfing “t3h Int4rw3bz”), as the inertia of slacking is quite strong. I will try to write on weekends, but will not feel guilty if I don’t.
So say we all I.
