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Sparkle (4)
I need to stop reading listicles.
Preying on eager, wide-eyed noob bloggers, listicles are list-format articles that suck you in by offering 15 ways to enhance your blog or 12 ways to increase traffic or 17 ways to generate more comments. But in the end, all they really seem do is list 137 different reasons why your blog sucks, IT SUCKS I TELL YOU!
As a relative newcomer to the blogosphere, I've come to realize that reading listicles is akin to being six weeks pregnant and scouring articles about all the things that could and would go wrong during my 34 remaining weeks as a human incubator.
Those articles freaked me out. And so do listicles.
Although meant to be helpful, listicles often leave me questioning my ability and allure as a writer. At the same time, my admittedly mouthy, obnoxious, and thoroughly self-centered inner monologue continues to churn away, streaming a steady discourse of potential blog posts based on every mundane occurrence in my daily life.
Sometimes I wish she'd just shut the hell up.
What happens next is essentially a nuclear meltdown of my brain. Faced with an overload of ideas offset by the paralyzing notion that none of them are particularly interesting or relevant, my inner monologue essentially goes into overdrive, spewing sparks and clouds of smoke before ultimately short circuiting and collapsing into a steaming heap. And suddenly, I can't string two coherent sentences together.
And then? Well, then I don't update my blog for two weeks.
Which, incidentally, is a terrible thing to do, according to many listicles.
It's all about content, say the pros. You have to update your blog often (but not too much). And your posts can't be too long (but they also can't be too short). And you can't write about yourself (because nobody really gives a damn). But you do have to write great content (although no one ever defines 'great').
It doesn't matter that listicles are a dime a dozen and purely subjective. Or maybe it's because they're a dime a dozen and purely subjective. In the end, they get inside my head and leave me feeling paranoid, inadequate, deflated and wondering, frankly, "Why do I even bother?"
And then I lose my writing mojo.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing, however, as it gives me a chance to get out of my own head and reflect a bit on why I started this whole blogging thing in the first place: Because it's a fun, enjoyable hobby that grounds me at a time in my life when I often feel overwhelmed by my obligations as a wife, mother, and employee.
Along the way, it also occurred to me that gaining recognition, exposure, and eventually money through my blog would be really cool too. But fun, enjoyment, and a sense of self are the fundamentals of why I blog. And it's important not to lose sight of them in an effort to keep up with the many Joneses of the blogging world.
ProBlogger Darren Rowse said in his recent post entitled "The 11 Definitive Rules of Blogging":
"Successful bloggers tend to forge their own path. Many of them are aware of what works for others and learn by observing, but they also take what they learn, experiment with it for themselves, and let it evolve in a way that fits with them and their audience."
(Incidentally, his 11 definitive rules of blogging are 11 blank spaces.)
Maybe Rowse is onto something (I muse about one of the definitive voices in the blogosphere). After all, during this blogging hiatus, I learned two bits of exciting news. First, one of my early blog posts is going to be featured in the Mother's Day edition of the In My Shoes column for my hometown newspaper, the Richmond Times-Dispatch. The Mother's Day edition! And excerpts from my post "The Real Santa" are going to be included in a new book about Richmond's Legendary Santa for the Children’s Museum of Richmond in honor of his 75th anniversary this year. The author of the book found my blog through a Google search. Score!
If success is measured by the achievement of one's goals, then my blog is already experiencing small tastes of it. And that couldn't make me happier.
So, I may not update my blog often enough, according to the listicles. But there are times when you write to live, and there are times when you live to write. And then there are times when you just wanna live.
My blog posts may also be too long
