No Boundaries: My Bad - Social New Media & Guilt?

Northern Voice is making me feel awfully guilty. I've been blogging for over four years now and have steadily declined in frequency of blog posts. Not for lack of desire, but mainly lack of time. Or am I experiencing burnout?

How do people find the time to have a full time job, and blog, tweet, and post to flickr regularly, plus have a real life?

Perhaps that explains the popularity of twitter. Microblogging is fast and easy. 140 characters or less for a tweet is obviously simple and quick. Though I don't find it as satisfying as blogging. It seems rather utilitarian and mundane.

Am attending "Help! I'm sick and tired of my blog," moderated by the very cool Susannah Gardner, which is interesting to hear the panelists perspective... Darren Barefoot recommends less posts, which are longer and more contemplative. Anthony Nicola said he's trying to do more podcasts and videocasts. They both mentioned they have multiple posts in mind, which they want to write, but it's finding the time. I totally feel the same. Topics I want to write about:

my trips to Sonoma, Santa Ynez, Argentina, Walla Walla, and Puerto Vallarta
my identity and what it means if anything, to change my maiden name to my fiancee's name once I get married this summer
starting a seperate blog for my book club
updating all the blog posts for my wine club blog
adding a blog to my Golden Mile Chalet site
creating a wedsite (*sigh* having difficulty finding one that allows lots of customization - might just need to create from scratch in wordpress) and blogging about the whole odd, commercial wedding process
and ironically, wishing my work would let me start a blog for Mission Hill, since I would love to be able to utilize a blog as a medium for helping communicate and interact with wine enthusiasts about our winery

The panelist's solutions: take a break from blogging (which I've done), write what you're passionate about (I do), and do guest blogging. Guest blogging? I can't do enough of my own blogging, let alone post on other people's sites. I wish I could even find the time to read more blogs and comment on other sites.

C'est la vie, at least I'm re-inspired to start blogging again :) A travel or wedding post coming soon...

Comments

Hey Lori!

Being a blogger IS being a writer; once the initial flush of narcissism fades there's got to be another and more enduring reason to keep writing.

I've always found it a lot of work; it takes me forever to write and edit a post, and posts always end up longer than I'd intended (longer too, I suspect, than most of the audience was really hoping for).

For all these reasons I started out with a low frequency of posts and I'm proud to say I've maintained that frequency.

I think of my blog as the polar opposite of twitter; I only post if I have something to say I know I'll want people to read in 200 years, and if I care enough about the subject to overcome my natural laziness and actually write something. The rationalization that I write for a small, weird audience most of whom aren't yet born relieves some of the guilt I'd otherwise feel about infrequent posting; the fantasy that my posts are timeless classics gives me a nice feeling of accomplishment on the infrequent occasions when I actually finish one and publish it.

Posted by: Bob Blakley | February 21, 2009 at 07:43 PM