Archive | March 2016

Dealing with Blogging Insecurity

I’m going to admit that I’ve been having a difficult time with blogging lately. I’ve hit the point where I feel like I’m floundering. I want to keep blogging. I absolutely will keep blogging. Most of the time I’m very happy with blogging. But sometimes it is difficult to talk into the void.

It’s so very easy to question myself. Am I saying anything that matters? Am I saying anything that people care about? Am I just spending my time only for people to ignore me entirely? Will I ever get anything out of this blog? (Anything meaning money, publication, connections, friendship, heck a good discussion counts too.)

Then I remember that yes, I have already gotten some things out of this blog. I poured my heart out with my I Remember, I Remember post and love poured back, not just here, but on Facebook as well. All of this was worth it to me in that moment.

Blogging can really dredge up your insecurity, let me tell you. Daniela Uslan sent out an email earlier this month touching on the dark side of blogging. Of getting caught up in stats and formulas and forgetting why you are blogging at all. It made me think about this. It made me think about my little spot of the internet that I have here.

I blog because I have something to say. I know that every time I speak through a post I run the risk that no one will care. I also know I run the chance that someone will. Or a lot of someones. All I can blog about is what is on my mind and hope for the best while (somehow) not doubting my voice or my topics or the way my blog looks or what other people say – or don’t say – or anything else. It can be so very, very overwhelming and stressful. Especially when huddling at the feet of other, very successful bloggers whom you admire.

To anyone who has ever read a post here, thank you.

To anyone who has ever interacted with me here, thank you.

To anyone who will ever drop by in the future, thank you.

You’re my little reminders not to give up on the hard days. Things might be a little quiet around here throughout April and May, but I’m working hard to bring you lots of exciting content of many varieties for the rest of the year. 

Stick around! I’ve spent a year getting my feet under me around here (as well as several years at other blogs previous), and I’m ready to charge forward with new content. If you have particular suggestions of things you’d like to see me blog about, please drop a comment over here to tell me about it and I’ll see what I can do!

 

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Never Say Never

Honestly this isn’t bad advice for life, but I think it is even more appropriate for artists of all kinds. Never say you will never try out a different form of your art.

swings, two swingsIn 2011, I wrote a piece I called “Swing Set Sonnet”. I loved the title then and still do now. I will freely admit I’m addicted to alliteration. It happens without me even thinking about it. (I even promise my admission was not alliterated on purpose!) But I forced the image I had to work within the constraints of a sonnet – something it firmly did not want to do – all because I loved my title. This was an awful idea. Instead of letting my poem find the form it needed, I bullied it into being something that could never work. Continue reading

Refueling Creativity

Sometimes I don’t feel like writing. It has nothing to do with time or my day job or family and household responsibilities (though those things do stand in my way more often than I should allow). It has everything to do with my creative well running dry.

When my creative well starts pulling up more sand than water, no amount of dedicated butt-in-chair writing time will fix it. The creative fuel I burn when writing is generated almost solely by other creative pursuits. Continue reading