I’ve been in full-on blog creation mode since before September started. For me, that means gathering every possible bit and piece of information related to blogging that I possibly can.
When I undertake to learn something new, I don’t do it just a little. I make it my life’s mission to become an expert who could stand up and give a speech on the topic to an audience full of newbies.
Sometimes, this is a good way of doing things. In this case, it was bad.
Art vs Art Blog
I wanted to start this blog to support my attempts at learning art, provide a little accountability, and track my progress. Somewhere along the way, I got sucked down the wrong rabbit holes and suddenly dedicated myself to learning the intricacies of social media blog promotion, SEO optimization, lead magnet creation, mailing list cultivation, and a whole mess of other stuff that is totally beside the point right now.
The point right now is that I didn’t make art in September. I was so busy learning how to write the most attention-grabbing blog post headlines and how to create the most Pinterest-worthy blog post images and how to properly schedule posts to all the social media channels to maximize engagement that I completely lost my way.
That ends now.
Evil Robot Blog Monster
This blog has started to become a stressful machine with too many working parts and rights and wrongs and rules with the end goal apparently to gather loads of followers and then make loads of money. The blog has started to take over, and it’s not leaving any room for the reason I created the blog in the first place. The blog has become a taskmaster robot overlord with an agenda of its own, and it’s making this whole endeavor supremely un-fun. I feel like I’m turning into a cloneblogger and have left all of my own personality at the door for the sake of doing everything “the right way.”
So I’m backing off from the blog. Well, that’s not exactly right. I’m not giving up the blog. Rather, I’m reigning it in and making it my bitch again. I’m not wasting my time living up to whatever the blog wants. Instead, the blog will be a tool I’m using to achieve my dreams.
I’m going back to the original point of the blog, before I got sucked in by all the “How to Start a Blog” blogs that seem to be everywhere. I’m not going to worry about all the irrelevant crap that I’ve been focusing on. Those are things the blog wants to it can be popular with all the other blogs. But my job isn’t to make the blog popular. My job is to learn art.
I’m going to learn art and make art and blog about that. Period. Once I’ve overcome all the hurdles that are preventing just that simple beginning, then I can consider maybe thinking about possibly someday worrying about getting readers for my blog. I can always go back to my earlier posts and revise them so they’re SEOy and Pinteresty and whatever else they should be. But that’s all much, much later.
Avoidance Issues
This is a huge relief, and also terrifying. I know now that I was using this blog set-up time-suck to avoid the discomfort I feel when I actually think about sitting down and making art. But I’m back. I’m back to the discomfort and self-loathing and dread and insecurity and fear and demotivation and overwhelm, because those are the things I need to overcome first.
As I said somewhere around here, this blog is a work in progress. This is my third post and I’m already knocking the whole thing down and starting over. I expect it won’t be the last time.
And away we go!
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