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.

It’s nearing the end of February, and I feel like the number of times I nearly forget to blog is increasing. I’m usually brushing my teeth or washing my face, perhaps recounting my day and creating a loose mental picture of the next day, and I suddenly remember: damn personal blog goal.

Sure, I could just quit. Missing one day in almost two months is still impressive to me, the Judger of Goals. I have formed the habit of remembering my blog. I have formed the habit of posting something on my blog even if it’s just a slightly embellished tweet.

But I still have not reached the point where I am truly blogging every day, in my opinion. Where I write something thoughtful and do more than hurry to post something so that I can just go to bed already. I feel like I’m about 50/50 on thoughtful vs. hurried. I would like that to be better. In order to improve that, I really need to begin blogging earlier in the day when I start having viable blog ideas rather than putting it off until I’m tired and ready for bed.

There may be everyday stories, but I’ve struggled to find a bloggable story every day.

I’ve been disappointed with the number of “cop-out posts” I’ve used in order to fulfill my 365 challenge. I suppose that I was hoping for something somewhat meaningful, or at least mildly amusing, to come out of my brain every day. Friday night I started to write an entry but got tired and disinterested in what I was writing. Finally, after 2am, I shared a link in a post that was not much longer than a tweet. I forgot to pre-date it to Friday at 11:59pm, per my “I’m still awake so it still counts for the previous day” guideline*.

Instead of fixing it on Saturday, I simply didn’t blog at all. I slept in and kept myself busy all day—either subconsciously procrastinating or just plain not thinking about my blog. Then, well after midnight and after my computer was shut down, I remembered my blog while I was brushing my teeth with my eyes closed. Screw it, I thought. I just want to go to bed. And I did.

So, there it was. My first missed blogging day of the year. I’ve wrestled all day with what to do. Fix the dates and pretend it never happened? Post another boring entry about this challenge and whine about my failure? Delete the entire blog and change my name and move to Costa Rica?

Eh, as tempting as Costa Rica sounded… here I am, blog and name intact. No dates have been changed to save face. And hopefully I’m not whining.

I blogged for 43 days straight and I’m proud of myself for that. Rather than throw in the towel (I always have a towel with me, don’t you?) at this point as I normally would (and have), I’m picking myself back up and gunning for the next 321 days. I still have a chance of 99.7% success for my 365 challenge. Go optimism!

*which I’m totally invoking for this post

It’s day 35. I’ve definitely solidified a blogging habit, even if sometimes I groan as midnight approaches because I don’t feel like I have anything interesting to say.

(That’s when I pull up my “to blog about” bookmarks folder that I built up while not blogging this past fall. It’s helped me with content and/or inspiration.)

There are two important things about this newly formed blogging habit o’ mine:

1. I am writing something every day for myself and for public consumption (and possibly entertainment, on a good day).
2. I have set a goal for myself and am dedicated to achieving it.

Kind of obvious, right? Even though I’m only 9.5% through the challenge, I’ve already accomplished something that I’ve never accomplished before—blogging every day for a month. It’s been awkward, fun, and straining at times. But I’m sending a message to myself that says, Hey! You’re doing it! and Hey! You can probably do all those other things that seem too hard or like too much work if you set your mind to it.

Not exactly earth-shattering revelations, I know. But accomplishing this minor one-month goal has rewarded me with confidence, which has in turn rewarded me with motivation in general. I guess I just needed to find the right challenge.

Maybe that’s why it’s called a personal challenge. Durrrrr.

Just dragged myself out of bed to post a quick entry. I actually met my goal and blogged every day in January, so I’m not too keen on slipping up my 365-day challenge now!

I started composing one in my head earlier, but it’s been a busy day and I’ve had a pinched nerve (probably caused by a knot on my left shoulder/neck) and been really tired. I made BBQ chicken salad based on this recipe for dinner tonight, except with olives and served over spinach. Tasty! Then Ben and I watched the movie 9 and he rubbed my neck until I cried out in pain and then fell asleep on the couch.  I’m a very exciting person!

Hey there! So, um. This is my twelfth straight day of blogging. It’s like reverse quitting smoking. (In a way, if you look at it with your eyes crossed.)

Except for this little detail: I am straining right now when it comes to a topic that will be A) interesting to you and B) something I feel like writing about today. I started a different blog post earlier, but I don’t feel like finishing it right now, and I’ve been tired all day and my eyes are dry again, blah blah blah.

Oh! Speaking of dry eyes. And breathing, but sort of not really. When I went out to my car this morning, that’s how I felt. I briefly wondered if maybe I was starting to get sick? There wasn’t any pain in my lungs. It’s just that the air was sort of… chunky? Heavy? A big lightbulb went off in my head when I turned the car on and the local NPR radio personality’s first word to me was “Provo, Utah, blah blah, worst air quality in the nation at a level of 140 followed by Salt Lake City at 122, with L.A. being at 51.”

I don’t know if those numbers are exactly right, but that was not surprising. I’m guessing that those numbers are just for a certain time period, like a day or week or something, because I can’t imagine Provo being more polluted than L.A. all the time. We have this thing the locals call an inversion, which means that because our valley is completely surrounded by mountains, when we have overcast skies and low-hanging clouds it’s basically like a domed arena and all the pollution is trapped inside. And there is a finite amount of beer.

Yeah, icky.

Well, I better publish this before my time is up. Hopefully there will be more quality in tomorrow’s post.

My first day of school is tomorrow. Again. If I’ve calculated correctly, this will be my 25th first day of school since I started kindergarten. I’m counting each semester of college in there as having one first day so the numbers may look a little inflated. It’s not like I’ve been going to school for 25 straight years. I mean, I’m not in a PhD program…

I’m registered for 19 credit hours again in all Digtial Media classes at Utah Valley University, but I’m pretty certain that’s going to drop to a more reasonable 16. I just need to attend a couple classes first to decide which one goes. I won’t be learning new languages or intense programs like last semester (Adobe Flash and ActionScript, I’m looking at you) so I think overall my semester will be more conducive to blogging, freelancing, and you know, general sanity.

I haven’t addressed what happened to make me stop blogging a few months ago. Basically it started with a seriously intense Flash class, and two weeks into the semester I’d compounded my initial struggle to learn the program with two failing quiz scores. That’s very unlike me, and I was dramatically distraught (I’m a girl, I’d also like to call hormones on this one). I almost dropped the class, but I really wanted to learn Flash… and dropping it would screw up my graduation plan. The professor was great and encouraged me to stick with it. I came to terms with the possibility of a potential poor (but passing) grade and gave it a go. I’ve never worked harder in a class before, and there’s no doubt that I learned a ton. I managed an A- so I guess it paid off.

My Flash professor has turned into my favorite professor at UVU. I had another fall semester class with him (Advanced Photoshop) that required a ton of work as well, but for me it was mostly dedicating the time to do it. I actually have decent study habits now. Quite the change from College 1.0. Anyway, I had 4 other 3-credit-hour classes and a weekly lecture series that required nine 2-page papers. It was a challenge to keep pace and my blogging and social life suffered.

Oddly, I picked up cross-stitching at the end of the summer and keeping up with that helped me stay sane. I craved the rhythmic needle movement and loved seeing little details reveal themselves as I went along. All of my classes required computer programs, so when I wasn’t doing homework, I didn’t want to be staring at my monitor.

It’s important to note that I’m doing subversive cross-stitching. Fun stuff, not the vomit-inducing crap that might typically come to mind at the mention of cross stitch. I was influenced by my friend Marie, maker of the hot zombie chick embroidery, and also by the awesome Subversive Cross Stitch book by Julie Jackson. Marie prefers freeform embroidery, but so far I’ve been very happy following a set cross-stitch pattern and having predictable results. Like these! It’s good left brain activity that doesn’t make my right brain jealous.

Okay, so I still need to iron and frame them. Baby steps, people. I haven’t scanned my first project from the Subversive book yet, and I have a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy pattern in the works right now. Hopefully I’ll find a way to keep up with school, cross-stitch, AND blogging this semester.

I better post this. Midnight is fast approaching and I have lots more to do before I can go to bed. Holy crap, I’m over 1% through my blog-every-day challenge! Inconceivable! Yay.

It’s too bad I screwed up 2009 by not blogging the last half of it. I’m not one to make a list of New Year’s Resolutions, at least not publicly, due to my tendency toward self-hatred if I don’t successfully resolve them. (Resolve? Is that what it’s called when you win?)

But I am happy to report that the one resolution I made last year (item 8 in last year’s update vomit) has been RESOLVED. I did *not* watch the ball drop on TV, nor did I watch any portion of the ultimately disappointing “Rockin’ New Year’s Eve” with Dick Clark’s head.  So, in light of this unexpected success, I have decided to set one goal for 2010. Drumroll, eyeroll, whatever… here it is:

To blog every single day in 2010.

Now, I almost just changed that to blogging 365 times in the year, just to give myself a little room to breathe, but that’s an example of me bending the rules up front to prepare myself for eventual failure. I’ve been unable thus far to write 50,000 words in 30 days for NaNoWriMo, or even blog for 30 straight days for NaBloPoMo.

This is definitely going to be a challenge. But it’s a goal, not a resolution. Sure, I’m also making the informal resolution with myself to “make healthier lifestyle choices” (i.e. lose some fucking weight already), but I already fucked that up this morning my ringing in 2010 with coffee and a brownie for breakfast. Go me. And I’m still buried under my continued failure to produce a new website for innergeek.us, let alone update the geek test. So. 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.

If you’re inclined to support my 2010 goal, I would greatly appreciate it if you would comment on individual blog entries from time to time. That helps my motivation. Of course, feel free to be a lurker and just hang around all quiet and creepy to watch the pain and impending disaster. Everyone loves a train wreck. Either way, I’m happy to have company for the ride ahead.

There! 0.274% of the way toward reaching my goal! Oh, God.