Blogging holiday: taking stock
One of the things that you can do while taking a blogging holiday is take stock of the way that you read, and write, and comment and engage in this activity we call “blogging”. A number of things struck me when I was away – and more so when I came back – that I’m going to share here, and then chew over for a while.
- Routine: we get used to our routines of checking e-mails, writing blog posts, checking into other people’s sites, skimming feeds. Like Gretchen, I wondered how it would be to get ‘unplugged’ from that for a fortnight. It was great. I did have the capacity to check the news headlines and my e-mails (including blog comments) but my pc access was limited to about 20 minutes every other day. It felt good to have so much time away from the machine
- Addiction: we get hooked into this stuff and find it’s changed the way we write, read, work, communicate, engage… without always thinking about the consequences. Some are good, and positive, of course. Others may be less so. I smiled at this stock-take of Rosa’s on the way we work in the 21st century – but also find myself wondering how much of this we should be worrying about, or changing?
- Time: I’ve been
spendingwasting too much time on the distractions of the blogging world. I want to find ways to build in blogging (all of it – not just the writing but the reading and browsing and commenting and the rest…) into the beginning or end of the day, with a fixed beginning and end point. Maybe this will mean writing less. Maybe it’s just a question of being more efficient. In any event I know it will also help reduce attention splatter.
- Writing: the bit I missed the most was the time to create new written material (composing posts). But I realised that too much time on the distractions of the blogosphere was soaking up time that I’d like to use for other writing projects, like ‘real’ magazine articles, or another book
- Focus: I’m currently hosting two blogs, this one and Coaching Wizardry. I want to find ways to get the balance of input, time, effort right between the two. Maybe that means writing less often on one of them but in both cases holding onto the most important thing which is…
- Purpose: writing, and blogging – for me at any rate – are intrinsically linked to a wider purpose. It’s not something we do just for it’s own sake. There may be something we need as individuals, or groups of people, to express and to share. Or maybe ideas we want to spread. Or information we want to pass on. Conversations to engage in. Friendships to forge. The time away got me thinking about my own writing purpose: what was it I really wanted to say? what story am I trying to tell?
Coming back, looking at the mass of posts other people have scribed over the last two weeks in just one small fraction of the blogosphere got me thinking how much of it was… just so much noise. So many words written for their own sake. Material to feed the machine, get the links, find the readers, keep the search engines happy, activity that keeps us busy, keeps us distracted but maybe keeps us away from the bigger picture. The reason we started to write in the first place.
So much that needs to be done. So much that needs to be said. So much that matters that is getting lost in the noise. We need to choose our words wisely. Use our ability to write – the time, the freedom, the opportunity to express ourselves – to tell a different, a better and more compelling story.
I’m still working on what this means for me. The words I need to write. The purpose I need to focus on. The things I need to drop, maybe. Or the things I need to write better, stronger and more clearly. Taking my own medicine and writing with my own true voice. Writing with authenticity, writing with confidence…
I’ll keep you posted on where these reflections take me. Meantime, as it’s the summer months in the northern hemisphere I know a lot of you will be taking a break from your own ‘plugs’ into the machine whether that’s reading blogs or writing them. Did things look and feel different when you were away? Did you find your perspective changed when you got back? And did your writing change as a consequence?
Joanna, I so agree with you on the need to – and wisdom of – better corralling our online time into specified windows. This is one of the reasons that comments have been on my mind lately (as you know from our JJL conversation and that’s the link I’ll use with this one for your readers
When your blogging platform sends you an email alert that a new comment has been received, it is so hard to ignore it, and the online quicksand claims you! … and oh the irony that I’m leaving you one in the eleven o’clock a.m. hour for me when I should be working on other things … so no rush to answer this! (and looking at the hour, I do hope you’re fast asleep and blissfully dreaming.)
Wanted to share an idea with you that has been working very well for me: Back in mid-May, I created a brand new blog and simply called it “bJournal.” It is password protected and not public, and I initially started it because after a lifetime of paper and then Word doc journals, I wanted to tag my morning pages and other private journaling with categories and keywords so I could better find those flashes of inspiration that can come from stream of consciousness writing.
Well it has turned out to be one of the best writing ideas I have ever had. I now use it for all my blog writing: The “noise” and private stuff stays there, and what is worth sharing and I think worth the value of my readers’ attention moves to one of my “real” blog draft fields to be slept on and then edited in a more online-worthy voice of the Mea Ho’okipa. Blogging is very addictive, and what bJournal has done is satisfy the fix, while serving its digital archiving purposes for me, with the cleaning up of my act a true bonus.
I have had a goal to be a better commenter within the blog community and not an “airy fairy” one, and I now find I am putting comment drafts in bJournal too if I want to curb my first impulse in its writing and return to the blog later.
Learn from the Master: Blog for 1 Person
The Master you learn from is you.The 1 Person you blog for is you. If you are a blogger, a writer, (or want to be) or keep a journal (or have been wanting to), this post is for you. The
Dear Rosa
Thanks for sharing this with us – and for developing the theme further at JJL. I like the way you are thinking about your writing in terms of things you need to get written and store – which isn’t necessarily the same as things you want to end up publishing or blogging about.
Oddly I have stopped journalling in the few months since I’ve been blogging – the desire to create words from my thoughts and ideas is being satisfied (for just now) through the blogging and the conversations that flow from it. But I know that may change in the future given that different times and circumstances generate different needs to write, in different formats.
Taking time to preview and edit comments is good practice and something I try to do – but I don’t always sleep on my responses (maybe I should!)
I am smiling at the very notion of you being an airy-fairy commenter. It seems the very opposite of your thoughtful and constructive approach.
But I share the idea of making comments worthwhile too. There’s so much clutter out there. If we’re going to add to the conversation in a meaningful way let’s take the time to share words that are of value. That doesn’t have to mean sparkling prose – but words that make us think, or connect up our stories, or come from the heart
Joanna