Longer Than Planned: Confessions of a Semi-Reluctant Blogger

Every time I stop writing, for whatever reason, it takes a while to get back into it. When I stop writing, it's hard to get back to it because it's way too easy to say, "I'll get back to writing tomorrow." When tomorrow arrives, there's another reason not to write anything. I enjoy writing on here, but at times it feels like just something else that needs to be done.

Is this due to my ADHD habit of not finishing things that I start and never finish? I have bolts of fabric to use with the patterns that never get made, skeins of yarn bought specifically for clothing that hasn't been crocheted, and I haven't even tried to learn how to use my spinning wheel yet. Is the delay a subconscious resistance to the long writing assignments from college?

Perhaps, as already mentioned, it's something that feels too much like work. Why write on the blog when you could be doing something more fun, like playing a game on your phone (until I get stuck on a level)?

After each break, I tell myself I'm going to do better and keep up with the posts. The laptop comes out, and I stare at it for a bit because coming up with so many ideas is just as mentally taxing as actually writing about them. I put it away without writing anything. I feel bad that nothing was posted, telling myself that, in my mind, I'm wasting money on the website when I'm not writing anything for it. I did a calculation just the other day, and it would take 18 posts a month to "break even" for the cost of running the website. Running the website has no monetary value; doing this is a waste of money, in that sense, as well as the time it takes to write the posts, not to mention any homepage changes that are made.

I've been trying to improve my writing skills, but I'm not sure how well that's going. I know that I'm not a natural writer; it takes me a lot of time to write even one post, let alone the 216 it would take to justify the expense of running the website.

Affiliate marketing is one way that bloggers make money. I've tried this several times, to no success. Perhaps one day I'll achieve that level, but it's not happening right now. I've read that gaining that kind of popularity takes around 5 years on average. Getting the website out there and finding readers takes time. Determining the most popular topics right now can be done through analytics, but why are people so interested in reading about Amauracana chickens? They are indeed cute with their fluffy cheek feathers, but how many posts can be dedicated solely to them? The second popular topic is using a greenhouse to cultivate vegetables and fruits throughout the year. It's intriguing, but again, how many posts can you write without repeating the same points?

Finding images for the posts also takes time. For anyone who's read more than a post or two, you'll notice that a lot of the pictures are the same, or at the very least, similar. The website comes with available pictures that can be used without affecting your storage limit. While I would love to put more of my pictures on here, I don't have access to unlimited storage (the plans with more features cost more than I'm willing to pay right now), so I try to keep the additional picture count low. It's frustrating looking at the same pictures all of the time, trying to change them up, but at the same time, it's a nice feature to have available.

That accounts for the lack of posts since my previous one, which I originally planned to be only a short break. I need to motivate myself to start writing again, and I'll publish something new next week. Fingers crossed.