Day 14 of 365, but really Day 10 of blogging.
I have not written a blog post since Tuesday, so I figured today was the perfect day to talk about it. As I said when I first started this 365 day challenge that my goal is to become more consistent with my blogging. Obviously, that is still a work in progress.
Why do I want to blog, you might ask? My answer would be, ‘I don’t’, but that’s too simplistic of an answer. I’ve never really cared about blogging because it is so similar to journaling. My ADHD finds little to no value in it, so I struggle to make it more than a week. The problem is that I would then feel guilty for not journaling and would usually go back and try to “catch up”. There was never any true value in playing catch up either because I was simply filling in those days to make myself feel better about having failed at a task. I got nothing out of the process, nothing people who claim to love journaling say they get.
Back when I was still in the classroom, I would blog about various teaching topics, or even when I was in school for my admin license, I would write about leadership topics. Though I never had a huge readership, some of those posts still get traction. It seems others have found value in them. Now that I am no longer full-time in a school, I feel like my thoughts on school-based and classroom-based topics are out of pocket. Hence, I don’t write in that blog anymore.
Instead, I have decided I wanted to blog about writing, since that’s where I spend most of my time and energy. Well, this past week, I was facing a really important deadline, and writing blog posts late at night after I’d written thousands of words in my manuscript was taking away from either my sleep or my creativity. So, I made the decision to not write blog posts until I could once again make time. Did I feel guilty about it? Every damn day. Am I glad I let myself forego writing them? Absolutely.
If a key benefit of journaling, and in turn blogging, though, is supposed to be reduced stress and anxiety, there is no benefit if the obligation to do it is causing stress and anxiety. So, I am celebrating the fact that I made blog posts for nine days in a row and took four days off to focus on other priorities. Now, I will attempt to blog daily until I have to shift my priorities again. I will write when I have something to say, and I will say either whatever brings me value at the time or what I think might eventually bring value to others. I will give myself grace.
If you’re curious, the priority this past week was finishing the draft of You’ve Got Bookmail, the next Leya Layne contemporary spicy romance. It is scheduled to go to ARC readers on 2/1, and I need time to edit it and get beta reader feedback. So the book had to get finished. This upcoming week, I need to do some work for my actual 9-5 job in preparation for my return to the office after 13 weeks off, so who knows if I will manage a blog daily on top of my regular writing schedule. Priorities are always shifting, and we have to learn to be ok shifting with them. At least that’s the lesson I’m still learning.
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