This blog is part of my 38 before 38 series. I write a blog for every single day for the 38 days leading up to my 38th Birthday.
This is the second time I have attempted this. Publishing daily is not easy. Even when no one reads it. It is still part of the public record. It still comes up when you google me. Throwing this out without any effort is not worth it.
Of course writing, and editing daily, even a small blog post like this, is very time consuming. I have a lull in my professional schedule, which allows me to work on this. However, I do still have a life. I have family. I get flat tires, and leaky faucets. I have to fix them.
It is also the talking into the wind. I still refuse to add analytics to my blog. I get some analytics from the Medium posts and newsletter platform. The latter itself is mostly skewed because 10% of my subscribers are using Apple Mail, which marks all emails as open.
However, these past 10 days have revealed a lot about my creativity, and where it lacks. Here are some of my takeaways from the issues with maintaining this schedule.
Running out
Last time I wrote about a variety of topics. Technology is a particular interest of mine, so it dominated last time. But this go around, that is the only topic I seem to be writing. I keep going back to that well.
Even so, I have limited ideas. I seem to circling the same sub-topics for the past few days. Some of it was being sick and some the spontaneous nature of this endeavor. However, despite more experience, I seem to have less “in the bank”. The previous time was the first time I wrote anything for public. Plus the free time due to COVID created more things to think about.
Rabbit Holes
I do not like the label “non-fiction”. However, most of my writing can be categorized as that. This brings certain constraints. Namely, it requires me name my sources.
I like to think that I make informed conclusions. However, I am an awful note taker. Which means I have less time to look for citations to any given blogpost. Specially since Search is Dead. This also limits what I can write about.
Find you Faking
From what I have read about other writers, more ideas end up in the shredder than the printers. “Kill you darlings”, said Faulkner. No matter how much you are in love with an idea, there is no guarantee that they will be as good on the page as in your head.
However when you want to publish every day, quitting when you are 400 words kills the momentum.
Counting Crows
Almost all of my posts this time have blown past the minimum word limit. I don’t have write so many words. Limiting my word count would help me a lot. Not only in writing, but redrafting and editing.
But 300 words are not enough for any idea I’d like to explore. Though it would be a nice constraint to experiment with.
A daily schedule for writing can be brutal. Writing down the problem makes it so that I can deal with them easily in the coming days.