Inspired by an old Daily Post: A Year in Posting.
According to my stats, I only posted 37 times last year. So… what prevented me from blogging?
Some thoughts:
The publish button ‘looms’…. once you’ve pressed it, there’s no way back. You can delete or edit your post, but in the meantime people will have seen it in all its roughness.
Sometimes I wrote something and it seemed empty.
Sometimes I just wanted to turn off the computer and be by myself… write my private journal (without feeling constrained), read a book, watch Death in Paradise.
My sight has been ageing and I’ve had trouble concentrating on all of my usual hobbies (e.g. digital art) along with new ones (such as trying to draw). It was unpleasant switching my focus from a book or magazine to the computer screen (or a drawing pad) and back again… there’s a point where you just can’t do that without developing a stoop in the back and a crick in your neck! Varifocals have helped, but my vision will never again be as good as it used to be.
What would I do differently this year??
I have various computer ‘projects’ that never seem to be firing on all cylinders at the same time. I was listing them last night: Facebook, digital art, blogging, a small chat forum, the Kindle Reader (it’s a world of its own)… and I think I forgot to list the DVD Subtitles site! It’s a while since I’ve rated any DVDs.
Anyway, where was I going with all that…? I feel I need to get all of these main hubs of internet activity organized and functioning equally, so that I don’t spend all my time in Facebook, for instance, leaving my other interests to suffer. It has to be easier to reach everything and get involved.
The most important thing I’ve done so far is setting Google Reader to show up automatically every time I fire up my browser. The blog posts of my blogging friends are the first items I see every day… so keep blogging! Fuzzy Bear is watching.
Aw Diddums 
I hear you. I’ve found this last year has been so all consumed with my neverending thesis that it is mostly what I write about…and think “wekk, if *I* don’t want to think about it anymore, why would anyone else?”
I am longingly looking forward to a thesis free life in September where I can try and figure out just what the heck I will do with all my newly acquired spare time…but first I have to finish it. Gulp.
Yikes… reminds me of struggles I’ve had in the past with finishing dissertations. Hang in there! I suppose that if you concentrate on that, it will be over with sooner. You could try the 15 minute rule… set out saying “I’ll just do 15 minutes today, perhaps just organizing my points,” and then it takes off. 😉 Or if it doesn’t, at least it’s still 15 minutes less work to do.
No stress…It just means you have a life other than blogging, which is definitely OK! 🙂 Plus, living in such an age as today–there’s so many other digital pursuits we can’t help but be associated with, i.e., facebook, Kindle, Twitter, Internet…It’s a wonder how we can keep up with all these things!
I think it’s great though that you try to incorporate non-digital hobbies in your day as well, such as the lost art of reading actual books, painting, and journal writing! Hehe…As a busy mom, I actually wish I had more time to blog–or even write in a journal again…I haven’t done that in ages! I found some of my old handwritten journals not too long ago, and although I keep them for sentimental reasons, I would never open them and read them again on account that it reminds me how ridiculously naive,awkward, and dramatic I was as a teenager! 🙂
Anyway, if I don’t get blogging in for myself, I try to at least make time to keep up with all the blogs I follow–including yours! 🙂 It’s a nice break just to be able to sit down and read all the interesting things going on in people’s lives without feeling guilty about being nosy…At least, that’s how I feel about it… 😉
Other people’s blogs are wonderful in that you feel connected to them on a human level… I was reading a Wikipedia page ‘Criticisms of Facebook’ which said that Facebook increases envy, because everybody puts their best foot forward, so to speak, and you don’t usually see the bad parts of their day. I think that’s true of Facebook whereas it can rarely be said about blogs.
Re: personal journal, it shows I have a lot more time on my hands than you have. 😉 It’s a luxury. Maybe one day you’ll have more time to yourself and can afford to keep one. I know what you mean about stuff you wrote when you were a teenager; I feel exactly the same way! But occasionally I’ve found that we can be too hard on our past selves… it can be an eye-opener when you read back and realize something wasn’t quite the way you remembered, and you weren’t that awful. 😉
you’ve got a point about past experiences being an eye-opener…In my case, when I read that, I thought about how whenever I blog now, compared to back then–I notice that I rarely post about negative experiences anymore. Most of my posts now speak of happier moments and memories. And sometimes I think to myself, “Why aren’t my posts more woeful and full of drama?” Then I think about how I was back then and how much I’ve grown and changed to where I am now and I realize, “Oh! That’s why. I’m no longer in that woeful, dramatic place!” 🙂
Not to say I’m all unicorns and gumdrops all the time…I still have low moments every now and then. But I think that because I know myself more and have acquired more wisdom as the years go by, I’m able to deal with those moments in a more mature way. Plus, I’ve learned not to dwell on negative things the same way as I used to. I really think that my becoming a mom and a wife changed me dramatically in a sense that I cherish every happy moment and memory even more than I ever have. That’s why you’ll see a lot of my posts being about my kids and family in general. I can’t help but share that happiness with everyone! 🙂 🙂
Anyway, I have a way of letting my comments get reeeeally long. Sorry about that! Hope you’re having a great day so far!
That’s true, it’s like when I wake up in the middle of the night and can’t get back to sleep… I can either lie and brood, or I can sit up and read a book! It makes life easier to handle. It fits in with a newspaper article I read once that claimed that older people tend to be happier… it’s partly that they learn coping strategies along the way.
Don’t worry about long comments, they are always great to receive. I was worried I would come back here and find nobody was talking to me any more! 😉