One Week (What I Have Learned So Far)

It's been a week since I started this commitment to blogging a little bit each day and thus far, I have learned a couple of things about myself and about trying to cultivate a regular writing habit.

1. People who do blog on a consistent basis make it look easy. My friend Chez is a professional writer and blogger in the Catholic blogosphere and I am constantly amazed at the volume he puts out on a regular basis. He rarely ever misses a day and often posts several things in a day. Granted, sometimes the stuff he posts is silly stuff (which I appreciate), but quite often he posts something that causes me to think about some aspect of our shared faith in a new way.



2. Even with a writing trigger, that's no guarantee that I'll actually pay attention to the trigger and actually write. In order for a trigger to work, you kinda have to pay attention to it and not just gloss over it with a thought of, "I'll do it later." It makes me wonder if the trigger I chose (having my second cup of coffee) is really all that effective or if my own tendency toward procrastination is just so strong that this particular technique isn't quite the right one for me.

3. Despite having fallen off the wagon twice in the last week, I am still writing. What's more, I have managed to stay true to my commitment to not make excuses and get back on the wagon the day after having fallen off. I'm actually really proud of that because my other general tendency is to let one day become two and then three and then a week or month or year. It's very easy to let things snowball out of hand and just give up.

4. Finding inspiration for a daily post is harder than I thought it would be. I am trying to keep this blog on a sort of theme of Catholicism, family, random geekery, and perhaps the odd post or reference to Southern culture and life, but when trying to come up with ideas for posts, that gets a little harder. I'm also trying to keep specific personal details to a minimum (hence the pseudonyms for the real people in my life). All of this makes it difficult when I'm staring at a blank screen and trying to figure out what to write about. Perhaps with time, this will get easier too.

So yeah, this gig is harder than I thought and may likely continue to be hard for a while until it gets stronger feet underneath it, but I'm still committed. In fact, as today is the one week anniversary of this commitment, I'm going to use this post as a renewal of my commitment. I may wind up doing this each week to try and help me stay on task. For now, I'm off to work on a draft of something I want to get posted this week.