Starting Over
I've had a lot of blogs in my time. I've tried writing on Wordpress under various pseudonyms and on various topics (including one REALLY bad blog where I put up some truly terrible poetry that I wrote). I've written about LARP, I've tried writing about my own life, and I've tried keeping a Substack that was basically just an excuse to advertise adventures I wrote.
All of them sucked.
Why did they suck? Simple question, simple answer:
Because I did a bad job actually posting things.
It turns out, my major problem when it comes to writing is CONSISTENCY. I can come up with awesome ideas, I can flesh them out fully in my head, but when it comes to the discipline to actually sit down and write them, my god to I ever suck at getting things done.
Starting Over
I'm going to try starting over with blogging. I'm not trying to change the world, I'm not trying to get famous, I just want to get the discipline going to actually write.
The Blank Page
I love notebooks. THere's something so wonderfully tactile about them, and I feel amazing when I write things down using an actual ink pen on actual paper. It tickles a particular spot in my brain to make the happy chemicals in a way that almost nothing else does, and my god is it EASY. Looking at notebooks, fantasizing about how amazing it will look once it's filled with writing, it feels so GOOD. But then comes the issue.
Staring at a blank page, what do I write? If it's bad, it'll ruin the notebook and destroy the happy chemicals. Better to wait until I have something good to write down. But then nothing is ever good enough. And then my beautiful notebook (Leuchttrum 1917 or bust) stays blank and sits on a shelf, collecting dust and other clutter on top of it, and then the happy chemical turns into the sad chemical seeing it sitting there not being used and eventually thrown away during a decluttering effort.
Blogs are much the same. I spend a lot of time setting them up, organizing the pages, figuring out hashtags, and getting the theme set, and then I never acutally write anything. Or I start a post and stare at a blank text editor because the little voice in my head is shouting:
Hey you, you don't have anything worth saying, so don't bother!
That's what this post is actually about -- breaking that feeling.
Not a Blank Page
THIS post is about jut writing something. Anything. Stream of consciousness, no editing, no planning, no real thinking. Just write something and hit publish. Because then the notebook isn't blank any more, and doesn't have to be kept pristine until a good enough idea comes along. Because the ink is already spilled.
What comes next?
I'm going to try to do my best to write something every week. I'm going to fail. I'll consider this blog a qualified success if I get a post up every TWO weeks, but it'll be an absolute success if I get something up every week or more. Eventually, this is gonna be properly tied to my company website, or maybe it won't. Maybe I'll migrate any TTRPG stuff over to a different blog once I get that set up, maybe I won't. But for now, I just need a basic sheet of paper that I can start getting thoughts out onto.
We'll see how it goes from there.