KirstenL4W

Over at Lightening’s Blogworld, there’s a question: Is NaBloPoMo Bad for Blogging?  I’ve been starting to wonder that myself.  This past week, influenced by the hormonal roller coaster, I find myself very uninspired.  Uninspired to write, uninspired to cook an interesting meal, uninspired to have a decent conversation with my husband (totally my thing - nothing to do with him).  I get this way every 4 weeks, on schedule.

But this post isn’t about my hormones.  Lightening discusses some of the good and bad about NaBloPoMo.  Good because it encourages us to post every day, and bad because now no one has time to read all the posts that are coming out.   She asks, “Do you have an opinion on Nablopomo? Do you think it’s good for blogging or not so good for blogging? Have you ever participated?”

First part.  Do I have an opinion on NaBloPoMo?  Well, yeah.  It is great because I’ve been blogging every day, which I haven’t done in quite a long time.  There’s a bit of a sense of community to it all as well, because as I go through my daily reads and the bit of link-chasing that I do, I see others that are participating and feel like I belong.  It’s also gotten me to stop procrastinating so much about posting, which I tend to do a lot, though I’ve still got a ways to go on that front.

Do I think it’s good for blogging or not so good for blogging?  Generally, I think it’s a good thing.  For me, like I said above, it’s gotten me to stop procrastinating so much.  And I think, overall, I’ve been able to avoid an endless litany of “too tired to post today” posts that tend to pop up every November.  But on the other hand, the pressure to put out a post every day leads to too many “no post today” posts.  As Lightening pointed out, those posts clutter up our feed readers and take up a lot more time to get through.  Don’t get me wrong, there have been quite a bit of quality posts, but they tend to be from bloggers already in the habit of posting 4-5 times per week.  It’s fun take up a challenge like this, but I think the blogosphere will be a bit better if people just stop trying so hard and write when they feel like they have something to say, not out of obligation.  That being said, while I’m enjoying the challenge, once this is over I will be Blogging Without Obligation.

Have I ever participated?  This is the first time I’ve participated, but the third year that I’ve been in the blogosphere.  In the past, I’ve been a bit behind the curve on these sort of trends, but this year, with my post frequency falling, I figured I needed the challenge.  I procrastinate too much -think about a post for a week or so before I post it, or something else entirely.  I’d been going a week to 10 days between posts lately, and this was just the thing to kick start me back into making blogging a more regular habit.  Lots of times I don’t post because I am quite tired at the end of the day, and by the time I come home I just want to do nothing.  I read some blogs, stumble a lot, and generally avoid heavy thinking until a burst of inspiration comes along.  NaBloPoMo has helped me recapture what it was like when I was a young blogger, thinking about everything in my life in terms of a blog post.  I hope to be able to keep it up for the rest of the month (12 more posts after this one), and after that I think I should be able to post about 3 times per week, which is a happy medium between every day and a couple times per month.

So what about you - what do you think about the questions that Lightening has put forth?

Other Posts Like Me:

• I Am A Good Blogger!
• Blogging Mistakes - Posting Too Soon
• 10 Ways to Get Inspired to Blog
• The Rules of Monetization
• Feed Me What?

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