Haven't had much luck with generating blog posts lately--other than a few travel reports, my writing well seems to have gone dry.
I'm not quite sure how to jumpstart my brain on this. The guilt associated with non-posting to three different blogs isn't helping things, either. (I know, I know. No reason to feel guilty. There's no requirement that I be posting. But guilt is seldom rational.)
Meanwhile, I'm watching my colleagues at M2M churn out a slew of great posts (check out latest YASNS post--"I have 30 million years of primate social experience wired between my ears."). Not to mention all the great content coming from people like AKMA and Dervala and Weez and Halley and Jeneane. Seems like I'm the only one blocked these days.
Maybe SXSW will help get me unstuck. Then again, maybe it's the constant traveling that got me there in the first place. I'm feeling uncentered, out of touch with home and sense of self. Three more trips in the next three weeks. Then things will calm down, and perhaps the creative juices will flow again.
Only you could blog about not blogging. That's the second funniest blog I've read today. Dave Barry had a similar entry:
Welcome home Professor. :o)
I don't like the idea that you would blog because you are "supposed to" be blogging. At least for personal blogging. I don't get a guilt trip when I don't post to my site for a few days. I just post when the mood is right, i have interesting thoughts i want to share/store, or i just feel like writing about my life. If all else fails you can always write about your boring life. :-) Don't get the guilt thing going.
It's not the personal site that tends to guilt trip me...it's the two "professional" sites, Many-to-Many and misbehaving.net.
Guilt from a lack of quality or a lack of ability? Wasn't sure which.
Whose theorem was it that 90% of everything is dross?
For a daily blog, I had assumed that also applied to my own work. :) (Not necessarily true of you, but the idea is that the guilt part isn't necessary). Writing each day strikes me like when we go to the gym, the quality is less important than the doing.
Thanks for the nod of "great content" but...
ping, pang, pung?
giggle.
I love you.
Blogging is not a sport or a competition! Publishing personal insights, essays, and diatribes is at the soul [sic] discretion of the writer.
Write On! Or not as the muse entices.
- Pa^2
I hope SXSW helps me too! I'm looking forward to it and hope to bump into you there.
Well, you could begin unblocking by blogging about varieties of "guilt". What voice is attached with what type of guilt? Or scrap all the talk about guilt and think about routines... writing routines, reading routines... exercising routines... And the factors that can disrupt routines... Recently Jill Walker at jill/txt observed changes in the nature of her blog entries. The exchange to that entry led to wondering about the seasonal nature of writing. Who can sustain a daily blogging regime? And where do they do it from? By where, I mean what kind of infrastructure supports them to find the time to read and write even while on the road? And I do think you should take into account that when you travel with Lane you are not in the same space as when attending a conference. It is interesting that the audience you have in mind may have an impact about what/how you blog about the audience you have been hanging out with. I'm sure Misbehaving.net would be interested in the topic of traveling with children and contributing to tech blogs. BTW misbehaving.net doesn't appear in your blog rolls (I may be missing it as I scroll through... ) There you go another topic... managing blog rolls and scrolling.... Welcome back.
Ah, Francois. You're wonderful. Good suggestions.
(And misbehaving.net is in my tech blogroll.)
Ah now I see it ... right between Tim Bray and Ross Mayfield.
Ever consider putting them in alphabetical order? or does the order reflect the latest consulted by you? And a little explanation as to what the italicized rendering might mean? :)
Me, wonderful? Just a relentless rhetorical application of the feminist trope that the "personal is political" dosed with a bit of discourse analysis of recent blog entries at mamamusings. *wink*
Hi, I just wanted to say thank you for the 3 column layout. I've been searching for one everywhere, and it came up from a link on another blog after a long search on Yahoo UK & Ireland. I couldn't post a comment on the actual post so I thought I'd leave one here to say thank you very much!
Annie, glad you found something helpful here. :)
Francois, the blogrolls are organized in order of most recently updated; the italicized entries have been updated in the past two hours. (Both functionalities provided by blogrolling.com)
I'm all too familiar with your predicament. I often try to refrain from the inevitable "I'm posting this empty entry in hopes that you, my reader, will protest, and in doing so, ignite the flame of productivity in my mind."
I've been developing a thesis for how the blogging paradigm can be used to enhance learning, communication, etc. in a high school environment. I came to your blog after reading that you are looking into similar possibilities. Please send me an email and share what you've found if you have the time. (I hope that made sense; it's 2:30 A.M.)
I just read a bit more and I believe I may have been a bit hasty to post that last comment; perhaps "looking into similar possibilities" should read "an authority on weblog/academia symbiosis." You also seem to be a lot busier than I first assumed you to be, so no worries if you don't get around to emailing me.
The first rule of Fight Club is "Never blog about not being able to blog about Fight Club."
Funny thing is, once I posted this, ideas started flowing again. Posts coming soon.
xian -- you may recall a past post of mine about rules...
Something about them steenkin' I recall.
Seriously, though, there is an ebb and flow and just when I start feeling like there's no joy in blogging and my email inbox is starting to scare the neighbors, I usually re-discover the easy way blogging sometimes relieves stress and frees me from having to remember something neurotically and has almost nothing to do with "should."