Michelle also admits to some amount of shame at her lack of blogosity in comparison to my almost-daily-posting track record, especially with a new job, a new baby, and no computer (not quite true – no laptop but I still have access to a desktop pretty much everywhere I am – so a bit more inconvenient but not too bad.)
Anyhow, a few people have asked me since I started this blog how I’m able to post so regularly. So I thought I’d try to answer that now.
The first element is that I’ve kept a personal journal (my small town roots won’t allow me to refer to it as a diary – those are for girls!
) since 1991 during my first year of University. I’ve always been a wannabe writer and had made various attempts at keeping a journal since probably the day after I learned to write. But they never stuck until, perhaps unsurprisingly, I got my first computer. The advantages of keeping the journal electronically – searchability, security, automation of some things like the time stamp I use for every entry- helped me to make writing in the journal a habit that I’ve never stopped. (I think I read somewhere that you need to do something 20 or so times in a row for it to be a habit. So less than a month of daily posts – in your personal journal or on your blog or for anything else – going to the gym, going to bed early, whatever it is – and you should be on your way. Of course, how they figure this out so precisely is the bigger question!)Getting back on topic – knowing I would have to write regularly to make the journal a habit, I decided to aim for a daily entry knowing that a weekly time frame gave too much chance to let it slide. In the end, my entries weren’t necessarily daily but as often as I had time or reason to write. Some are one line long, some are pages in length. I would say that since 1991, I’ve written 10 000 single spaced pages worth of entries. Of course, I’ll never go back and re-read everything but it’s nice to be able to go back and, like looking at photo albums, have moments and memories come back to me – either when I’m trying to remember specific details or just browsing randomly.
So when I started my blog, it was a fairly easy transition to doing regular, frequent posts here also. And much like my journal, sometimes I’d go for a few days without
writing on my blog while other days would see half a dozen entries or more.
Finally, I think I’ve developed a few tricks to make daily blogging easier – I bookmark interesting links as I come to them so I always have something to talk about, I try to visit a few aggregators such as MetaFilter and Reddit on a daily basis which provide lots of potential links/topics for discussion. Things like photos and embedded YouTube videos are easy “cheats” on days when I don’t have anything to discuss but still feel obligated to post.
I’ve also built up an archive of maybe 20-30 draft posts that could turn into full fledged blog entries at any time. Pending topics range from long-buried subjects like “10 Things I Learned In Library School (Honest)” to a more recent idea to write about “Why Saskatchewan Is The Most Canadian of Provinces” to a list of useful library employment web sites (including RSS feed links for those that don’t already have them courtesy of Ponyfish.
So anyhow, there you go – an explanation of how (and why?) I do daily (give or take) blog posts. Oh, and the biggest irony? Since starting this blog, my personal journal has gone from daily posts to closer to weekly ones!
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