I’ve written nothing in a few days, which can only mean one thing:
I’m taking this thing far too seriously again.
Not writing anything would generally mean that I’m waiting to think of something worth writing about; some “cool link,” some “inspiring thought,” or some “significant news needing commentary.”
Nevermind that there are five gazillion (note: not a real number) blogs which are currently linking to the top stories/links on Slashdot, Boing-Boing, digg, or del.icio.us/popular. Nevermind that opinions are like armpits (that’s the “nice” way of rendering that aphorism); everyone has one, no one wants to see yours. Nevermind that there are news/magazine sites with people who cover news full-time and have the time and resources to cover current events quite a bit better than I could.
No, to heck with all that. I’m a blogger. This is something I just do.
Right?
Meh.
What prevents me from writing then, is the idea that if I’m going to write, it has to be something great. Something that will rack up the page hits, drive the traffic sky-high, and so on, and so on.
In other words, taking this thing a bit too seriously.
You see quite a bit of this sort of thing in the “blogosphere” (to use that beloved/hated word which describes this community to which we are a part–for better or worse)–I think almost every blog I’ve read regularly in the last year (with a few exceptions), especially those written by a solo blogger, have included a post about the stress of feeling like they have to write something, every day, that it has to be good, interesting, or another adjective of your choice.
The problem, I think, is quite simple.
Most bloggers–probably 98%–are not professional writers. That is, they are not paid to write (excepting possibly the $34 they have racked up from their Google Ads so far). Despite not being professional writers, we have set out upon this task; write something, regularly–perhaps even daily. This “something” is published upon the whole internet, so like it or not, we are writing for mass consumption. Without intending to, this can easily translate into feeling a need to write something that will have value to the nebulous “reading public” (you know–other bloggers).
What’s missing is the realization that, with relatively few exceptions, even professional writers do not write a piece of publishable writing every day. Even regularly published magazine columnists make their living coming up with an interesting column–usually about the same length as a lengthy blog-post–once a month.
What I’m trying to say is, expecting yourself to write a genuinely interesting piece of writing every day is unreasonable for most of us, and will definitely cause stress, writer’s block, or just a lack of output if we hold the bar that high before we’re willing to hit “Publish”.
So help yourself out: just write any old thing, today. Relax. Or, maybe, write nothing.
Or sign up for Nanowrimo and write 50,000 words of stress-free crap and call it a novel; why not?
So, this is me taking myself less seriously. It feels good.
