Newbie thoughts revisited!

After the emotional roller coaster of my DS wedding, I have decided to take a few days off from the blog. I can’t bear the thought of you not finding something to look at though Dear Reader so will post some from the archive that you may have missed

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This post was first published in April 2010. I shall write an ‘update’ in the New Year!

There seems to have been lots of serious thinking over the past few days about blogging & what it means & involves. Paula’s post here  questions whether blogging is a selfish activity. She also considered her own authenticity here

Although this is not exactly navel gazing, it got me trying to clarify my thoughts about my blog & its purpose. I’m not really sure how it started. I’m an avid twitterer & have separate groups for writers, vicars, mums, school governors. Many of the people I follow have blogs & it seemed to be a good idea somehow. I didn’t have a plan as in having a particular subject that I was passionate about. I’m not in business so don’t have anything to sell. I just thought it would be something new for me to try on my new journey since retiring.

I’ve been doing it for about 6 weeks now & I’m really enjoying myself. I love that people stop by & leave comments. I love to see re-tweets promoting my posts. I love being part of the regular happenings like Writing Workshop or the Gallery. Just like Nickie at Typecast tweeted, I’ve felt withdrawl symptoms when I haven’t contributed.

However, it has its down side!

Like Jay at the beginning of her post  I began to feel pressured into posting regularly. Where did this pressure come from? Was it my anxious nature throwing a pebble into the blogger sphere  pool to unsettle me? I have learnt that when my anxiety strikes I have to try & unpick my feelings which I’m not good at doing. With the help of my wonderful OH & a special virtual friend, I came to see that I was getting caught up in a world that my nature is not really suited to.

It was a world of competition, not for awards necessarily, but for hits on my site, for comments on my posts & for that graph to be soaring ever upwards.  No-one had forced me into this world. I just seemed to get pulled along with the enthusiasm & the kudos of having such recognition. That is the pressure. It’s the sort that every success brings I suppose whether you are an Oscar winner or a retired woman at home writing a blog!

 It was not meant to bring me worry. It was not meant to stress me out. I had enough of that as a Head teacher. However, like being a HT it can be great. The adrenalin rush is a real high & you don’t want to give it up – certainly not voluntarily.

 So…what to do?

Well, I’ve decided to make a written commitment to you Dear Reader  in the hope that you will help me. I will try not to be so obsessed & paranoid. I will try to accept that I am still new, learning & growing as a writer all the time. I will try to control my envy & covetousness of all those talented people who readily share their skills with me.

Above all, I will keep reminding myself that this is for me. This is my fun. If I have company then great, but I can do it on my own!

Have any of you had the same sort of experience? How did you manage it? What steps did you take to overcome it?

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