I’ve fallen off the wagon. Big time.
I’m not just posting a couple of days late; this time I’m several weeks late. I could write excuses. I really could. I was preparing for final exams. I was receiving a house guest. But mostly it was the exams.
Leading up to the dreaded exams, I wanted to write a few posts in advance to keep handy in case I wouldn’t be able to keep up with writing one post per week. But I didn’t get around to it. I got caught up in this mad push to finish out the academic year and things got away from me. And once I missed one week, it was all to easy to brush off the remaining weeks. It has been three weeks since exams finished up.
Enough dwelling on my mistakes.
Cue last weekend as I was recovering from my second dose (check the date of this post—if you know, you know). On a whim, I opened the site analytics and noticed that people were still visiting The Accountability Blog! I never really trusted the analytics before since I figured that over half of the hits were probably just from me checking on things. But I know I hadn’t visited my own site in this time, and still the digital footprints were clearly there.
Not that the actual number of hits matters too much to me, but it’s thrilling to see that others are finding my site and that some of my posts are legitimately helpful. It’s validating to know that my efforts are making a difference.
As far as posts go, it turns out that How To Export Highlights & Annotations from a Kobo Device is the most popular right now. I think my instructions in the post are pretty clear, but this kind of makes me want to improve it with some screenshots or something.
So basically this is me saying that it’s summer, I have the time, and I’m committed to making up for the posts that I missed in the last few weeks. In the interest of transparency, I’m doing this for myself because it encourages me to expand my knowledge about writing, but I would be thrilled to know that what I’m posting is helping others too (I just can’t bank on that alone since it’s totally possible that no one will be interested in these other posts—I have to capitalize on intrinsic motivation if I want this to work).
At this rate, and with all of the personal blog posts I’ve been putting out recently, I might as well declare this blog a personal one.
But not actually—I don’t think reading about my life is all that helpful haha…
Honestly, I do feel like I’m still trying to figure out exactly what I want to do with this blog. I have this vague direction—The Blog That I Would Want To Read, so to speak—but that could mean so many things. I love writing. I love reading. I love reading about writing.
But wait—do I actually love writing?
Because I haven’t done much of it at all lately. I can say all I want about being busy, but ultimately, I fear failure. I’m too scared to even try because it might not be good enough, which is so irrational because if I don’t even try, there is just nothing. Nothing to be bad or good, nothing to be terrible or fantastic. How can you evaluate something that doesn’t exist? And I know this. But for some reason that inner critic is so convincing. Maybe you can relate.
In other posts, as well as earlier in this one, I’ve mentioned that it’s important to me that my motivation for working on the blog is intrinsic, or comes from within. But I do think there is a definite interplay between intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. Because if I’m being completely honest, if this blog lived on my computer hard drive with no chance of anyone ever reading it, I wouldn’t be doing it. Not like I am now, anyway. I might still be researching writing, but I wouldn’t go to the lengths to write posts. It would be passive absorption, not active recollection and transformation. Having the prospect of an audience pushes me to go further than I would otherwise. It’s also the opportunity to interact with likeminded people that helps to motivate me.
When is the last time I sat down to write something that wasn’t a blog post? I don’t even remember.
I’ve considered posting some original creative content, but I get worried about this sot of thing in terms of publishing down the road. What I’m getting from some cursory research is that if you plan on submitting work to an editor, then don’t post online. It’s a sticky situation, since some publications do not want to publish works that have previously been published elsewhere, even on a blog, and even if you take steps to have it removed (the internet is forever).
There’s also the fear of plagiarism. I’d be upset if someone were to steal a blog post from me, but I’d be even more gutted if someone stole an original poem or short story I happened to share. Though really, who am I to think that my work is worth plagiarizing, right? I’m not a particularly experienced writer. It’s not like have objective feedback designating me as a decent writer. I have no proof of concept.
I’m not sure how to navigate these issues, and I could probably write an entire blog post on these topics (I very likely will).
Bumps in the road are inevitable. But all the same, here’s to improved consistency from here on out.
Shoot for success, achieve mediocrity.
