Over the past year, I have decided to worry less and less about blogging inertia. Curiously, this is not because I have come to care less about blogging, but because I found that I started to care a little too much about what would happen if I wrote a bad post. It reached a point at which I figured that I had to take my blog a little less seriously. Fortunately, other extremely enjoyable things were at hand, and I had the luxury of thinking that, eventually, I would have something to worthwhile to blog about and I would just wait for the opportunity.

This means that the time between posts has increased, but then, my satisfaction per post is increasing slowly, and that is what matters!

Well, I came from 9Rules, and I like what I read, and so I’m commenting.

I’d also like to add that I blog because I love what writing does for me–it seems to complete me, make me feel better about myself; it gives me a sense of accomplishment. I just started a new blog, and I know what I’ve written isn’t the best every, or really professional, but it’s my best–it’s my beginning. And little by little it will get better. Not that that matters to the readers, but it matters to me.

Mike, I like that strategy. If I could only remember to finish the books I start. But yes, a review of something you love is such a fun thing to do.

Hello Jana. I’m so looking forward to stopping by your show — your recent paintings are so lovely! As for conversations, I don’t have a system really — I want to hear what everyone has to say, sort of like how you feel when you’re at a great party or something and the guests are so interesting and kind and funny and sympathetic and so you talk a lot and enjoy what people have to say. That’s it.

Tai. Commentertia. Exactly. But look, you’ve broken through — you left a rockin’ comment.

OP — Slow motion, in print conversation — I like that!

Helen — Hello and welcome. How wonderful to hear from you — I love knowing that you’ve been hanging out and enjoying yourself.

I’ve also been spending much less time viewing, commenting and replying to comment salthough I always want to and mean to. You are so good about carrying on conversations on your comment section. Do you have a system for doing that?

“I will paraphrase E. M. Forster because I don’t remember where I read this: How can I know what I think about something till I hear what I have to say about it? This is profound, I believe, and universal; when we speak from the heart, with no plan, no point to make, we discover truths we did not know that we knew.”

The cool think about blogging is that it doesn’t all have to be perfectly finished…partial and emerging thoughts are also ok.

The Dean of Arts & Humanities here just said in a meeting yesterday, that the value of the monograph (read this “story”, “novel”, “blog” too I think) is it’s support for the “slow-motion, in-print conversation”.

blog on!

All your anti-blogertia ideas look great and so inspiring that I almost fancy starting my own blog just to try them out. But I think I’d rather read yours, heh heh heh!

So, thank you for writing, and best wishes,

helen

It is tough to write a lot on a regular basis and keep it fresh, even if just for yourself. One strategy I struggle to follow: I try to keep tabs on my stray thoughts, reactions, and attractions and sometimes that way find new and wonderful things to write about, although it doesn’t happen often enough.

My fall back strategy is to write a book review, even if it’s an older book that once upon a time I was enthusiastic about…

Regards

U-Dad — Real life, cognitive overload: I’d like to raise my hand and claim some of that. But I think that is clearing away here. Or at least it had better.

Elizabeth, What wonderful observations you make. I know how that feels — to be a little tired of the sound of me/me/me/me. I’m thinking about that some, and maybe I’ll get some new flash of inspiration.

Cole — I know. Sometimes you’d just like to write (or read) one sentence and move on. The trouble is that it has to be a GOOD sentence, worth writing and worth reading. That’s hard. It’s easier sometimes to write six paragraphs. And sometimes to just not do it at all.

Dear Melanie, New school clothes, sharp pencils, a non-smelly lunch box: all that helps, even if I’m just buying it for other people.

Lucette — The agent thing? Sucks. You have my sympathy. But cheers for finishing the novel! xoxo, L

The thing (well, one of the things) I love about your blog is that you write when you have something substantial to say, rather than (as is all to often the case on my own blog) a need to fill up ‘dead air’.

I absolutely love to read your blog, mostly because I share so many experiences with you: I’m a writer trying to birth a first novel and get some stories published, I’m a mother trying to negotiate kindergarten (gah!), etc. I started a blog just a couple of weeks ago as a deliberately navel-gazing endeavor, trying to expunge some of my own day to day stuff from my fiction. I guess I equate it with keeping a journal; I think I’ve had only one lovely visitor so far, and that’s fine with me, since the primary purpose is to get stuff out of my head.

Anyway, I think blogging is like any other kind of writing: for most of us, it comes in waves. It’s not enough to have a blank screen in front of us and a promise to ourselves that we’ll write something, anything; I think writing is worthwhile when it comes with the urgency of caring, of exploring a topic, of thinking things through. Having blogged for mere days, I can tell you I’m already growing weary of the sound of my own little voice. It’s okay to take a break. It’s okay to feel shiftless, even rangy.

I love reading your blog, but I hope you don’t force yourself to write when you don’t feel like it out of a sense of dedication to your visitors. Maybe you can reframe this space as a personal luxury to indulge in, rather than feed for the clamoring masses. (Or, maybe that kind of energy is best reserved for writing fiction.)

With love,
E.