I learned long ago that blogging works best when you do it every day. When you post every day, you’re free to try out ideas, to write something silly or clunky or weird in search of that flash of brilliance. Conversely, there’s too much pressure on a blog post when you’re only writing occasionally. I have felt the pressure build upon this very post throughout my absent weeks!
I want to blog every day. I want to be one of those bloggers who has a specific type of post for every day of the week: Monday quotes, Wednesday interviews, Friday book club. If I was a full-time writer, this would be one of my top priorities. Not because blogging nets me a big audience, or dozens of new readers, although those are wonderful benefits. By giving me a stream-of-consciousness art form with a mandate to satisfy readers, blogging helps me untangle my own thoughts, figure out what I want to say. It’s one of the most useful and fun writing tools in my toolbox.
But blogging gets thrown by the wayside and given a lower priority when I’m working on a novel or essay collection or big work project. I only have so much writing time in a day, and even more limited mental focus, after subtracting what I need for teaching and parenting and a little self-care. If I give the blog too much attention, I can’t give that attention to my novel.
So it starts to feel like an all-or-nothing mentality, where I either post every day or not at all. One choice just isn’t practical. The other doesn’t make me happy.
It’s a season, I suppose. Just as I bake more in the winter and bike more in summer, maybe I’ll blog more when I’m not writing fiction. Or maybe I’ll blog every day when I’m not a teacher or when my kids are older. Who knows if blogs will even be a thing then? Maybe I’ll be writing to an empty room. Maybe I’ll podcast instead– though that will take an even greater time investment. A currently impossible dream.
Blogging is a small expression of a bigger feeling I have for life. Even though I love what I have, and know it’s enough, there’s a yearning inside me for the all.
What do you yearn for that isn’t fitting your life right now?
How can you have a small piece of it?
