Ladies and gents, I have an admission to make.
I've been suffering from what I'm calling 'blogger's block'.
It's not borne of any great concern about being read; I put the words into the world and sometimes people respond, and that's nice.
It's not even a mild form of writer's block; the paralysing fear of the blank page, that frozen-in-time moment when you doubt and loathe every sentence that floats through your brain.
Nope. I can still string a sentence together, it's what I do for a living and what I'm trying to do as a hobbying author.
And therein lies the problem.
For quite a while, blogging stopped being enjoyable and became an onerous task, albeit one I'd given myself and which had become a victim of its own small-pond 'success', if you can call it that. It had become something of a busman's holiday and even the busman had started sneaking looks on AirBnB from time to time.
I'll put it out there that there were a lot of other contributing factors in my anti-blog-freeze: general ennui; the questioning of the relevance of a blog when everyone's an 'influencer' (seriously, can product persuasion and the overuse of the words "heyyyyy guuuuuuys" actually earn you money? Asking for a friend); the burden of expectation to say something funny, quirky, profound, when being a little more reflective seemed to suit the mood – I could go on.
Instagram has been my buddy of late; the definitive quick fix. Uploading a photo of a sunrise or a sunset (sunriiiiise, sunset...)
and connecting with other folk who like something visual that's not too abysmal (place that quote) has been enough for the last, erp, six and a half months or so.
While I haven't exactly been the quintessential social butterfly since last we spoke, I've not been Queen Hermit Crab either.
But again while I might have had a surplus of visuals to show you (come round, I'll show yer me 'oliday slides, luv), explaining them all with quirky captions filled me with an ennui-laden dread like never before.
And I write a killer caption, let's be honest.
Compiling a cohesive list o' links, also, made me groan inwardly. And outwardly.
Because I love to share.
I love sharing the links I've found, videos I've enjoyed, I just don't love sitting on them until I find the mojo to write around them; by that point they become irrelevant.
More recently I've found myself drawn to watching TED talks. If you have the TED app on your phone or tablet, you can build up a little watchlist and download a choice few to watch, which whiles away a commute whilst simultaneously making you think about the way in which your day might pan out.
This particular talk, which is some ten years old now and yet has not lost resonance, struck a chord with me.
(Quick summary: every seven years Sagmeister shuts down his offices, takes time out of his work to recalibrate and refresh, and usually comes back with more great ideas than he would have done at his desk.)
It's not necessarily pertinent to my work life, but it made me think very hard, and differently, about the blog, and how I see the blog progressing or even continuing.
I don't read blogs any more, not in the ritualistic way in which I used to. Most of the bloggers I followed have migrated to more bite-size social media outlets, and that's OK. In a world of media geared towards bite-size feeds to grab your focus, shortened attention spans, and a heightened awareness of the perils of oversharing, perhaps that's the right way to go.
And perhaps that's the way the quirky brunette must also go.
It may have already gone there.
So, in short, friends, I'm sending the quirky brunette – the blog – on sabbatical, so she (I) can come back in a few months, and see how we both feel about being out there in the world.
To invigorate ourselves and come back with exciting new ideas about how to present ourselves.
(I really don't know why I'm talking like two people, it's just little ol' me.)
However.
However.
the quirky brunette is alive, well, active and posting on both the Face Book and the Instagrams.
And once I've re-educated myself in the ways of blog widgetry (that's a word, yep), I will be able to keep a relatively steady flow of content
flowing steadily onto the page without having to agonise over it too much.
We'll see how we go.
Until then, don't go away, we're still here on the interwebs.
Maybe just in a different guise for a while.
Link Love 🔗💓
I thought this was very important:
- Sometimes you've just got to go off-grid without question | Grace Dent makes a very good case in the Guardian
qb xx
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