Prioritizing
10/07/2014 7 Comments
Hi all, sorry I have taken a step back from my Features for a moment. I’m re-prioritizing. I’m turning 30 this week. It seems an appropriate time to reflect on what I’m doing, and whether and how it’s helping me with my goals. For today, it’s what I’m up to with blogging and writing!
Blogging
As we mentioned recently on Comparative Geeks, we’ve taken a step back from our full posting schedule. We had been posting six days a week, three each, since the blog started. Even if they were short posts, even if they were late and posted on day seven, we kept that schedule. And even after announcing it, I almost posted something just to keep it at six for that first week. It was hard to let it go.
Our hope was to be able to do four solid, purposeful posts a week, and then a fun post on Friday – a poll or alignment grid or something like that. That way, the sorts of things that had maybe been our “filler” posts can have a specific day – Friday – and we have been motivating around doing our four posts.
I still have another solid post a week I am writing – over on Sourcerer. Lately, I have been blogging over there about comics, where I’ve done a four-post series on making comic book movies. Taking a step back from that, I’m going to do some single-comic reviews or series reviews in the coming weeks. This has been fun, and I have been trying not to duplicate content on Comparative Geeks – my series was perhaps informed by my writing on CG, but was not a duplicate.
My first thought when scaling back on CG was that I could use all that extra time for writing more here! Which is maybe a lovely dream, but is not really the plan. The point was that we were trying to reclaim our weekends, now that I am not working six days a week (something I’ve done for a large part of Comparative Geeks’ history). There are things to do.
Writing
And I got to thinking about my Features. Are they really helping me to write? Are they making me write? Or are they more like a task I’m obliged to do? Is it like homework? And is adding in writing prompts even moreso making it into homework?
Then again! Maybe that’s exactly what I need it to be. Because while I have a lot of story ideas, I don’t have a ton of writing discipline. That was some of the idea with the blog. But the problem is, I don’t feel comfortable putting my ideas out there on the Internet – for anyone to take.
And there’s still the thought that maybe first I should go with a mix of things: a blog like a Science Fiction Today blog, which I can hopefully turn into a book. And if I went a heavier blogging route, I could focus my time also into connecting better on social media (honestly, these blog posts ARE my Facebook presence!), into reading others’ blog posts, into trying and tapping into new things that way. I know what I would and could do this way, whereas writing is still kind of me pushing into new territory.
So a couple of questions to you, my writing blogging followers and friends:
- Do you feel that regularly blogging has helped you to do more regular writing (outside of blogging)?
- I know a lot of people do put a good amount of fiction out on their blogs. What sort of stuff do you feel comfortable putting out there into the ‘Verse?
- Do you find fulfillment in blogging, or is it more in the writing?
I’m only turning 30… it’s rare for a writer to be much younger than that so I’m not too worried! Still plenty of time to get this going. So thank you for your thoughts, comments, and help!
About CompGeeksDavid
DBCII 
Wow, we are so on the same wavelength. Seriously. You’ll see when you get my ping tomorrow.
1. It hasn’t helped me do outside writing. It’s a form of writing unto itself for me. It’s improved my writing in some ways, but there’s a syntax and a way of breaking the grammar that come along with blogging for me and that will creep in if I let it.
2. Short answer: Nothing i’m not comfortable offering up to the Internet, which includes autoblogs and people who mine easy images (which I produce a lot of) for use as stock photos. Never anything I hope to publish. I don’t polish my blogs. I’m hoping I’m generating rough draft material a tiny piece at the time that I can eventually string into longer, and better, texts.
3. Writing first. Blogging is a form or writing with other stuff thrown in. It requires a skillset and a willingness to do the parts that feel like a chore. I do find fulfullment in blogging, though. The blogs fuel the growth of my other social media. My other social media (very slowly) builds the blog. And I’m standing in the center of a speaking platform that just gets bigger. I geek out on it.
FWIW, We were doing that frequent posting over the spring and summer to generate an archive which I and my friends could then mine for good stuff and figure out the best way of doing things more than to build stable traffic with it (that was beyond our wildest dream when we started). Not because we thought we could maintain it for any great length of time. It’s been worth it. I’m now able to plan for next year with specific events (like A to Z) in mind, and I know when I have the most time to put into the blogging. It would not be worth it to keep posting like that beyond this point, now, so I am scaling back as well.
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I have thoughts, actually, for “mining” Comparative Geeks. More on that when it comes together…
Thanks for your input, I agree on wavelength. And I am enjoying blogging, I love what I’m doing. On Comparative Geeks, and Sourcerer, especially. So what I’ve ended up doing is making my work here a chore. And that’s too bad. I want to find a groove here, where I’m doing something productive, that people like, and that I’m really enjoying doing.
I wrote three blog posts today, for three different blogs. It was great. One somewhat philosophical (with pop culture), one speculative about pop culture (posting tomorrow on Sourcerer :)), and one personal, here. I’m enjoying it. I love the outlet and the audience. But is it meeting my goals? That last one is potentially an entirely different question.
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It’s absolutely a different question, and I have a choice about balancing the blogging with my fiction writing, soon so I sympathize. I pushed the fiction aside for a year to do this and see where we ended up. I like where we are, but the year is almost up.
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1) Blogging does help me write fiction. The consistency helps me be able to just sit down and write consistent fiction, too. I could go overboard and spend all my time writing blog posts, though, so I have to stay aware of that. (For some week-long events I purposefully do them when I know I can’t write much fiction that week, or I just decide not to.) It also helps that I post a novel update every month. The fact that I have to update y’all on my progress generally ensures some level of progress, even if it’s weighted toward the last week of the month. 😉
2) I don’t mind posting flash fiction and stuff like that, things I wrote for practice anyway and would like to see feedback on. I wouldn’t want to post anything I want to actually publish. I also don’t mind posting ABOUT what I’m writing, getting more comfortable with people seeing it is good for me, but I go back and forth on how much is too much.
3) I do both because I love them. For me, the fiction writing is kind of a delayed-gratification version of the blogging. I wouldn’t want to do it if I didn’t think it was a way to connect to people, even if I never speak to them any other way or they never speak to me. I blog about stories I love, and my novel is a story I love. I blog about writing, and, well, it’s writing. It’s all interconnected for me.
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Thanks for the input 🙂 Doing an update post a month is not a terrible idea at all, glad to hear it works for you!
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