blogging – aliciajoseph

I received a notification from WordPress that this year marks my 11th anniversary with them. No. I didn’t pop champagne bottles. It wasn’t a celebratory anniversary of that kind. The news mostly made me reflect on the last 11 years.

2014.

I knew nothing about blogging. A friend had mentioned I should look into it back in 2005 or 2006. I asked him what blogging was. He told me people just write things, and that Rosie O’Donnell had one.

I liked Rosie. She was funny. I had nothing against her; I just wasn’t interested in reading about her daily musings. I didn’t understand the curiosity one would have in strangers writing about their lives.

If I wanted to read something, that’s what books were for, and books were edited for quality.

Then 2014 came around. I published my first book. A novella called Her Name. My editor at the time told me to start a blog. Get myself out there. It’d take me 8 hours to write less than 600 words. I pondered every word, wanting every post to evoke perfectly the emotion I meant to convey.

I felt a sense of accomplishment after each post, and this new excitement of checking how many people visited my blog, especially those from other countries, was an experience I hadn’t known before.

I went all in. I wrote two blogs a week. I put much effort into deciding what to write about. I had a folder filled with blog ideas and newspaper cutouts. I treated my blog as if it were an assignment.

As I write this blog, nearly four months after my last post, I miss the newness of it all. The excited wonder of who will read my blog and what I will write next. I was new to most of social media in 2014. I had just joined Twitter and discovered the wonderful writing community. It was such a supportive and welcoming space.

Everything seemed so much nicer then. Am I a victim of looking at the past with rose-tinted glasses? Or have things really changed that much? Twitter, now X, still has a writing community, but I’m not as engaging as I used to be.

It’s probably me. I’ve allowed time to make me jaded. I’ve let the enthusiasm I once felt wilder away. Half the year has almost passed, and I haven’t written more than an outline. In the early years of 2014-2017, my passion for writing kept me locked in my room for hours. Now, it takes four months to settle myself into writing a blog. Did I say I used to write two blogs a week?

I’m too young to be so jaded and too old to waste time.

Is it common for writers to go through periods of hating, no, despising writing? Of wondering if it’s even worth it anymore, if the joy is gone?

Is it worth blogging anymore, when vlogging has been the trend for years now? Do people even read blogs anymore? But I’ve always been late to trends. I’ll probably start vlogging in 2033, when everyone else has moved up to the latest technological way people communicate with each other.

I’ve got a little more than 6 months to turn this horrible attitude around and start my book.

What methods have worked for you?

Today is June 1. The mark of half a year gone by. The time I usually reflect on the past six months in relation to the ambitious goals and optimistic attitude I had coming into the New Year.

I am sure I have the list of New Year intentions I resolved to accomplish written down somewhere, but have forgotten where I put it. (The list is probably in some convenient place I specifically chose so I wouldn’t forget where it is.)

Offhand, I remember the list being something like this:

Reading – Every new year begins with my resolution to read 52 books – one book per week – for an entire year. I have yet to accomplish this feat. Last year I read 34 books. The halfway point of this year finds me at a measly 9 books. Although I am currently reading two books and plan to finish them this week, I am still way off target. Whenever I fail to reach the coveted 52 books, I settle for at least doing better than the previous year. To beat even last year’s number means I gotta kick it up – big time.

My struggle isn’t for lack of books. My kindle is filled with a plethora of authors I love, as well as authors I am just discovering, and my library card is always in my wallet for constant access. I have no valid reason for falling so behind. I love to read. I’m a writer. I have no choice but to love to read. If I didn’t, I’d have no business being a writer.

Sometimes I feel guilty when I’m reading because I tell myself I should be writing. But a writer learns while he/she reads, and will better at his/her craft the more they read, so I will no longer call it reading, rather research.

The next time I spend a gorgeous afternoon under the sun engrossed in a great story, I will tell myself that what I am doing is the writer’s equivalent of a scientist conducting experiments in a lab wearing goggles and a lab coat. Research!

Blogging – I set a goal to write two blogs a week. This isn’t an overly ambitious goal. I did not set myself up to fail because this is an easily attainable feat. Yet, if you keep up with my blog even just a little bit, you know that not only am I not writing two blogs a week, but sometimes I don’t even write one.

This failure isn’t for lack of having anything to say. There is plenty happening out there I have an opinion about. Hello, this is election year. There have been an abundance of headlines that caused me to seriously rethink the level of humanity and compassion in our country’s leaders. And this is sad.

But I hesitate to write here sometimes because I question why anyone would care what I think. Am I wasting my time with this blog? I do this blogging thing because I was told authors needed it as one of their platforms. I know for certain my blog has been responsible for one book sale – one. But I don’t blog for the sales. I do it for that one person who may enjoy reading the words I write.

I easily forget at times that anyone, in any country with internet, has access to everything I write. A few of my friends read my blog and occasionally they’ll comment on something I’ve written, and I’ll stop whatever I’m doing, and think, “Oh yeah. I wrote that and you can read everything I write.”

Sometimes it’s a little awkward when I’m scrambling to remember if I revealed anything too personal. I will put some of my self-consciousness aside and just write about whatever I want – no matter how opinionated I may get.

Yoga and Meditation – I started doing yoga consistently about two years ago. I still practice, but I’m not where I thought I would be by this time. My dedication to the spiritual journey I set on a few years back has been interrupted. I used to practice yoga everyday, meditate nightly, and read spiritual passages.

I allowed myself to get distracted. It became too difficult to keep my mind at the steady pace and concentration meditation requires. The external noise around me got too loud, and I began to listen too intently. I let myself get upset about things I know aren’t important. I tried to control too much, forgetting the impermanence of life.

I can feel in my body and soul, in my self, where I lost the calming benefit, and clarity, daily yoga and meditation had once given me. I will get back to yoga with more consistency. I will slow my mind and remind myself that at this moment, all is well. I will read and retain passages that enhance my spiritual journey.

Writing – I am happy I have at least kept up with my writing. I have just completed an 80,000 word novel, the longest story I’ve ever written called A Penny on the Tracks. This feat alone makes falling behind on most everything else somewhat bearable.

A writer writes.

Never forget that, writers.