One A Day #56: Knowing When To Stop

There’s a beautiful paradox at the heart of this entry; it’s at once the hardest and easiest thing I’ve ever written. Hard, in that it’s something I don’t particularly want to do; and easy in that I know exactly why I have to do it.

I may have built it up more than is necessary, but I’m going to reduce my workload down to One A Week.

I don’t fully want to be doing this, because it’s sort of admitting defeat. The main reason I’ve made this decision is because blogging is getting on top of me. It’s not that I can’t keep up – I could write a blog everyday, no problem, if I didn’t have so much other stuff to do as well. I work 38 hours a week. I have a girlfriend to make time for – time which isn’t spent tapping away at my iPod. I’ve got commitments with another website, writing two features a week. It might not sound like much, but factor in sleep and there just aren’t enough decent hours in the day left.

It’s also a quality issue. You can tell me straight, I can take it; I’ve written some SHIT these past few weeks. I know I’m capable of better than what I’ve been putting out, but it’s proving difficult given my constraints. In my efforts to get something out, I write rubbish that I’m not at all proud of. I would much rather write one article a week that I’ve put time and effort into than seven half-baked ones.

But the biggest reason I want to go down to One A Week? I’m not having fun.

Perhaps I thought it would be easy to write one blog post every day. I’ve got an iPod and the WordPress app, I can get something posted even if I don’t have my laptop with me. But it’s having something to say; something worthwhile, or meaningful, and thinking of a new thing every day. I can – I have been. But I’m not enjoying it, really. It’s becoming a chore. I’m pushing things aside so I can get it out of the way – things that shouldn’t have to make way. If I am going to blog with regularity, I’d rather do it at my own pace and have fun doing it.

So yeah, I am admitting defeat. But I’m doing so with the best of intentions. Please don’t think it’s because I don’t like blogging – I love it. It’s the best way to expose your soul to the world – fuckin’ hell, that’s what I’m doing right now, isn’t it? – and it’s a brilliant platform for expressing your creativity. But I can’t do that every single day. I’m having a bad time now – imagine how fatigued I might be one month, two months down the line. How depressed. How resentful. No thanks.

Make of that what you will. I’ll of course be doing One A Week still (which, given my schedule, will probably go up on a Monday night). And you can find me writing Dan Pryce: Time Assassin (out on Saturdays) and Pixelated Perspective (out on Wednesdays) at http://www.electronicfarmyard.com. Plus I’ll probably write extra bits on my own blog now and again. You’ll know which one’s they are – they’ll be good.

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