It used to be that I was able to put aside self-consciousness about publishing on my blog. I published unpolished random writing exercises, outtakes of nothings on my mind, vignettes of a woman sweeping her walk at the beach.
Sometime in the recent past, maybe in the last year or so, that has changed. I have theories. One is that I feel repetitive. Another is that I got self-conscious about other people reading what I wrote. A third is that I questioned my motives — why do I need these words to be public instead of private? A final one, and probably the biggest one of 2020 — since the pandemic began, and since I began waking up to the misogyny, white supremacy, and racism that are still very much alive in the US, and since my mind is almost exclusively occupied by work and the disgraceful and horrifying state of our country and leadership — is that everything else feels insignificant in comparison.
Because of this recent self-consciousness, I haven’t been blogging much. What I’ve discovered from this is that when I don’t blog, I feel like my psychic arteries are clogged. There’s something about getting words out — not just out of my body but out into the world — that unblocks me. I guess this is what is meant by self-expression, though I don’t really know what I’m expressing when I blog. I don’t have a big message to share with the world (a fifth reason for my self-consciousness). This isn’t art, I’m not inspiring big thoughts, there’s no layered meaning to my posts, I’m not changing anyone’s life. Blogging just somehow serves as a release, like opening the windows when you’ve been shut up inside for too long.
I want my windows open. I have been shut up inside for too long.
To unclog my psychic arteries and open the windows for my pacing soul, I want to blog more, and I want to blog comfortably again, in my own skin, despite self-consciousness. To help get me out of my rut, I looked into fresh options to inspire me. I found the Brainsparker app. I used a couple of the free prompts with success, and I wanted more. They have a variety of “card packs”, including a blogger’s pack, and I was curious — what kinds of creative prompts would a blogger’s pack include? They already have a journaling pack and a writer’s pack. I wondered how Brainsparker creators perceive blogging and what kinds of prompts they thought fitting for bloggers.
When I found samples of cards from the blogger’s pack, I understood. The prompts are titles like “The best 10 ways to improve XYZ” or “The single best way to get good at XYZ.” These make me think of Buzzfeed headlines or blog posts written by companies who use blogging as part of their content strategy. I forgot that blogs can be monetized, and these are the types of titles that drive traffic, and that this is what many people think about when they think about blogging.
Needless to say, that’s not the type of blogging I do, and I suspect many of you reading also see blogging as something bigger than clickbaity headlines: blogging is writing, journaling, thinking, philosophizing, opining, sharing, teaching, expressing. The existence of this blogger’s pack and the type of prompts it provides got me to thinking about blogging in general, and what it means, and what people do it for, and what I do it for.
And here we are at a blog post wherein I realize I blog to express and release and breathe fresh air and unclog my psychic arteries. So I guess Brainsparker worked :). I definitely don’t need that blogger’s pack of prompts, but they have other packs to spark creativity that I am curious about, including colors, quotes, and a what if? pack that looks fun. There’s also a pack for photographers, and the prompts look like they might be good for writers, too.
I want to preserve this space for hope and beauty, and this post is my first step in unblocking myself to do that. For now I’ll continue to seek external inspiration and prompts until stuff starts flowing on its own. I cracked open own my prompt box again. I haven’t published anything I’ve written from the prompts, but maybe I should start, just to get me over the hump of, It’s okay to not write about the big stuff; it’s okay to write about the mundane, and maybe even beauty in the mundane, to for the very purpose of bringing a little light despite the big stuff.
Butterfly Mind 
15 responses to “Thoughts on blogging”
Great article on blogging. I relate… wondering who would ever give a flying fig what I might think about any given idea or thing. No one has to read we write… you and I and everybody else who writes…but in my mind I write it and put it out there and if no one ever reads it it isn’t my fault. One of my favorite blogger pals told me once that I was “a pretty fair poet,” but I should avoid political writing. What? I can write silly nursery tales but not commentary?
I’m glad you can relate 🙂 It’s funny how we wonder who would care what we might write about any given topic, and yet, readers find our words, and sometimes, the words resonate. I think we’re always seeking connection as humans, and blogging is one way we are able to find each other. I know when I stumble on a blog post that resonates with me, I’m grateful the writer decided to take the plunge and publish it rather than keep in their writing notebook.
Writing is a great gift to writers, but it comes with complications and misery sometimes. I wouldn’t trade it for any other skill, though. Just when I think no one cares what I have to say, someone does….I like that.
Gosh, I can totally relate! I’m constantly struggling with the “writing to myself and writing to others” thing and if I write to others who am I to do that? I don’t have anything different to offer. But I guess I should just write without thinking too much about it.
” since the pandemic began, and since I began waking up to the white supremacy and racism that are still very much alive in the US, and since my mind is almost exclusively occupied by work and the disgraceful and horrifying state of our country and leadership — is that everything else feels insignificant in comparison.”
👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏
Yes! This! When I write in my notebook, I typically write to myself. If I start writing and see that it could maybe become a blog post, I watch as the writing shifts from private to public, from writing to myself to writing to others, and my mind shifts from “okay, this isn’t just for me anymore, how does this need to change so that it makes sense to someone who’s not inside my head?” Writing to others definitely makes me a less lazy writer 😀 I don’t put as much effort into finding strong verbs or nouns when I’m writing to myself, or rhythm, or really anything except just spilling my nonsense on the page.
As always, a good post! Well, there are grammar police, cute cat and dog meme police (“Oh, but bloodhounds don’t chase balls” “Those cats are being abused — cucumber-fear is real!”), so it stands to reason that there’d also be blogger police — the most irritating of all, because they are ourselves! I think most of us forget that ‘blog is short for web log, which is basically journaling on the web. It doesn’t have to dazzle. It’s just necessary, that’s all!!
“blog is short for web log” – exactly! Thank you for validating that it’s necessary.
I have definitely thought the same thing as you, and that’s what stopped me from blogging for so long. But then I started journaling, and had the experience of that “psychic artery unblocking” that you write about here. It was almost addictive, the clarity and relief that I felt after writing my thoughts down.
For me, blogging is a way to craft that stream-of-consciousness into something more coherent, thoughtful, and that references other things. I don’t think so much about the person who’s reading it (because I can’t really control that).
Instead, I think more about the benefit to myself in the now moment, and to my future self who might read old blog entries the way I nostalgically scroll through my past Instagram posts.
There’s something wonderful about recording the journey you take, then to reflect on that journey and see how far you’ve come. ❤️
This is huge for me. I didn’t even think about this when I wrote the original post — thank you for bringing it up! I continually reference my blog for archives from my life, like when we made a huge cross-country move, and like when we were house-sitting for someone and I would sit on their back deck and write haiku. I bought a purse a few years ago that had a lifetime warranty, and a piece of hardware from the purse broke. I couldn’t remember when I bought it, and I wanted to be able to tell the company that piece of information when I wrote in to ask about a repair. Then I remembered I had blogged about the purse and I was able to find the date 😂. I love my blog for that kind of stuff.
Everything about this – yes yes yes.
Keep blogging! 😁
Aye aye, cap’n!
(thank you for the encouragement)
This resonated with me on so many levels. Thanks for sharing!
It might surprise you to know that I have missed your posts, so I’ very glad to hear that we will be hearing more from you. I find your writing very calming and part of it’s charm is that you write about small things. It’s often thought-provoking too. For example, when you write about the ink swirling in the water, it reminds me to be more observant about things around me. I also like the way you experiment with things, for example using prompts for your writing. Blogging year after year is hard and we all need a bit of a boost every now and then.
This is so goooood!! I just recently came back to my blog and realized that all the writing/editing/proofreading I’ve been doing (one 350 page ms. and another of five full bags of copies of many of the same pages for my 90 yr. old friend) had taken me away from the joy I find in just writing. Writing for no reason at all of nothing at all and knowing that here is an audience who with read it. Or not. And I don’t have to be profound. I can just be me. And that’s what’s so wonderful about your post. You’re just being you.