I started blogging earlier this year, and had managed to produce maybe 3 or 4 posts which were reasonably well considered, edited and proof read. By that I don’t mean the result was that they were well thought out, written or devoid of mistakes, but I did spend plenty of time on them. I’d have an idea, hone it over a few days, write a draft or two, get a second opinion and then post when I felt it was ready to share with the world. It was a fairly leisurely process and it was nice to think that whatever the outcome at least I could say hand on heart that it wasn’t done impetuously.
But that attitude doesn’t lend itself to great productivity. Weeks and weeks could go by, and I would write nothing despite the constant stream of current affairs upon which a misanthrope might be inclined to muse. I didn’t want to write unless I felt a) that I had something to say, and b) that I had the time and energy to at least try to say it well. By summer my reluctance to pin my thoughts down on digital paper started to feel less like prudent forbearance and more like a neurosis. It was at this time that I trotted off to BarCamp Berkshire, and after a couple of tantrums (yes really) agreed that I would abide by the ‘rules’ of BarCamp and I would lead a session. I decided to speak about my difficulty blogging.
My session went really well, and everyone was really supportive. The most concrete bit of advice I received was that the best way to gain confidence is to practice. Not everything has to be perfect, not everything has to be prescient, and most crucially for me, not everything has to be profound. To get over my fear of blogging I needed to get more comfortable with writing in general and that meant putting my more mundane thoughts out there as well as the grandiose ones.
So I’m a few months down the line, I’ve written a few more posts and I’m building confidence, but I’m still hardly prolific. And so I thought I’d give NaBloPoMo a shot. It’s a slightly scary prospect, but with 30 posts due in 30 days, I know I won’t be able to procrastinate, dither, and generally over-think which are my major problems when it comes to writing. What I produce maybe nonsense, which is scary in itself, but the structure of NaBloPoMo means I won’t be able to use that as an excuse anymore. Unless I crash and burn. In which case I might write up a post about failing sometime in 2013.