I <3 my blog: the beginning

/ Melanie Marttila

I’ve enjoyed Khara House’s challenges before.  Her October submit-o-rama was a hit 🙂

Khara HouseKhara’s really good at sussing out what her community might need and delivering it while playing to her strengths.

January is I ❤ my blog month and it’s not going to be a challenge in which everyone is dashing helter skelter to get a bunch of stuff done.  It’s going to be a gentle, thoughtful reintroduction to your blog and the reasons you started it in the first place.  It’s meant to reignite your passion for your blog and get you back on track.

I first met Khara in Robert Lee Brewer’s April Platform challenge and that was a task-a-day, whip your butt into shape kind of challenge.  A lot of us struggled to keep up, but Khara was way out in the leader-pack, showing the way.

So I’m back.

The “assignment” for week one was about developing a blogging schedule.  Now I had one.  When I started off, I was posting 6 days a week, then I dropped to five, then four … you get the idea.  In September, I hit the burnout phase.  I was trying to do too many different things and I just couldn’t keep up with the posting on a regular basis anymore.  It felt like a chore.

So I deleted my blogging schedule page and defaulted to posting when I wanted to/had the time/had something to say.  Sometimes that was several times in the course of a week.  Sometimes it wasn’t at all.

So now, in addition to being back with a Khara House challenge, my blogging schedule will be back.

It’s going to be basic.  Something I can manage given working and writing and critiquing (which I’m getting back to shortly).  What I’ve hit on, is a weekend blog-for-all 🙂

Lemme ‘splain: I figure that blogging once a week will fit into my schedule and if nothing else, I’ll post on Saturdays.  But … if it’s been a particularly inspirational week, I’m going to blog on Sundays too, and if a whole lot is happening, I might blog more than once a day.

So it’s a bloggin’ free-for-all, or a weekend blog-for-all.

Hope you like it, ‘cause it’s what you’re gonna get!

10 thoughts on “I <3 my blog: the beginning”

  1. Huzzah! Congrats on your revamped blogging schedule! It’s sometimes so hard to determine what and when we should be writing, especially when we start with that inclination to write all the time (aka, 4+ times per week)! Cutting back can often feel like something of a “let-down” but really it is SO helpful in keeping our eyes on the prize, whatever our personal prizes from blogging might be! Good luck to you in this fresh year of writing!

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  2. At the very beginning of blogging, I started with one day. I increased it to two times a week last January, and I think that’s plenty for me. With all the other writing that we do, blogging can be demanding or it can be invigorating. It’s demanding when we put too much pressure on ourselves. It’s invigorating when we have fun with it. I’m glad you’re able to find a way to have fun!

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  3. Melanie, I’m with you in Khara’s challenge. I was in the same boat (heh, I typed goat by mistake). When we did Robert’s challenge last April, the weekly editorial calendar was the one thing I couldn’t discipline myself to do — I couldn’t get myself to write if I didn’t have something to say, and spare writing time was going to work, kids or my fiction writing. Like you, I decided once a week was a good basic, with twice a week when I run a column. Sometimes (like this month, when I’ve been working on challenges to my annual goals), I post more often and am using Khara’s challenge to think this through. I look forward to your weekend blogs!

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    • Elissa,
      Yeah, with this blog thing, I was a leaper before I was a thinker, and that’s unusual for me. I tend to think about things … a lot … but Khara’s giving me a chance to be a little more thoughtful and a little more patient with myself. These things take years to build (platforms). Looks like we’re both in this for the long haul. Nice to be in the same goat with you 🙂 Specially if it’s a pygmy goat – they are so supercute!! LOL!

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  4. Melanie, I worked out a calendar during the MNINB challenge, too, but I’ve had to loosen up a bit if I’m going to preserve the writing time and also have a life. I still try to post three times a week–only one of which is a “serious” post (writing-oriented, memoir, or fiction). The other two–Monday Discovery and the WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge are for fun and for keeping me connected. I like challenges (like Khara’s and Elissa’s current ones, and Jane Ann McLachlan’s memoir challenge in October) that keep me on my toes, but I have to be careful not to over-commit. I tend to think, “That sounds like fun! I can do that!” and wind up with too much on my plate.

    Thanks for this thoughtful post! It’s interesting to re-think where we are with our blogs. A good thing.

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    • I’ve been struggling for balance for a long time. It always seems so close, but just out of reach. There are the good days when everything seems to fall into place, and then all those other days that I look up from the keyboard after all my SoMe explorations and it’s 9:30! We’ll all get there eventually. Thanks for dropping by and commenting 🙂

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