Yvette's Inner Geek Blog

I’ve been thinking about a comment on last week’s post, This damn 356 challenge. Alanna, my high school friend and a fellow writer, recently read an e-book about blogging wherein the author advised against forced daily blogging because it can lead to burnout.

Blogging burnout. Yep, I felt that a few weeks in.

But.

I’m not new to blogging. I like writing and sharing links and photos with my friends, fellow geeks, and The Internet At Large. I made a personal pledge to blog every day in 2010 to improve myself, not out of any external obligation. Burnout was expected—in fact, I’m starting to understand that my larger goal is learning how to deal with a viscous* trifecta of burnout, laziness, and imperfection. It’s about accepting that those ooze into many areas of my life and learning how to push harder to overcome instead of giving up or making excuses. As I said on January 1:

This one goal I have for 2010 doesn’t involve any specifics or require much in the way of perfection. It will be an exercise in follow-through for me that I think will be helpful. And maybe along the way I’ll attack some of my other non-official goals.

And I think it has been helpful. I sleep better at night knowing that, though my basket of unmet goals still overfloweth, I have accomplished one and moved 1/365 closer to accomplishing a bigger one**. And that one night a couple weeks ago when I was exhausted and didn’t blog? I still thought about blogging before making the conscious decision to go to sleep instead. It was a wise decision at the time and I don’t regret it. It was a lesson learned.

Now, when my eyes would rather close than stare at a blank WordPress Add New Post page, and all I can think of to write is something lame, I write it. Sometimes it stays that way, but mostly I’m finding that it inspires something more. Something I didn’t know I wanted to write until I was writing it. Something that I like and I’m proud to have written.

And that makes the burnout worth it.

*Yes, I meant to write “viscous,” as in thick and oozy goo. I accidentally re-read it as “vicious,” which would actually also work. So. Reader’s choice on that one, m’kay?

**Thank you for sticking with my tortured 365 Challenge posts. I’ll try to keep them at a minimum from here on out.