I was just lamenting to myself a few days back that one of my favorite bloggers (who blogs about blogging), Paul Chaney, had been a little quiet recently on his blog. Today he posts a blog titled The Joy of Blogging which might explain a little of why we’ve been missing his words of wisdom recnently:
‘As I’ve lived my life out on the blogosphere for over two years (I started in December 2003), I found it to be something very pleasurable. It started out as a hobby, then morphed its way into a business. Somewhere along the way, blogging ceased to be fun and started to become more like work. When it did, my posting slowed down dramatically….’
He goes on to outline four ways to help if your blogging has become more of a chore than a joyful experience:
- Blog about what you have a passion for.
- Read other blogs.
- Take a blogging holiday on occasion.
- Set regular times to blog.
Another tip that I’ve been considering lately on a couple of blogs that I don’t really enjoy any more is simply to end them. In fact last night I ‘retired’ a number of blogs that had not been going well both from a perspective of traffic but also from a perspective of my own joy and interest in them.
Of course ‘retiring’ a blog is probably a last resort and I’d suggest you take some of Paul’s advice before getting to that point. I’ve also written quite a few posts on battling bloggers block – many of which might help a little with recapturing some of the joy of blogging.
