A blogging holiday

My blog is pretty much a year old this month and, particularly in the past six months, I have become more and more invested in it – both time and even money wise. I tend to find myself binning off other activities (of an evening) in favour of concentrating on either writing, reading or commenting on other peoples’ blogs. And that’s without even factoring in partaking of a little tweet here or there or fiddling about with picture editing.

I enjoy it. I like writing; sometimes I even love writing if the muse has really struck me and I am 100% invested in my subject. But sometimes my commentary and involvement with others suffers because I have set myself these high writing and posting targets and it has felt like I am ‘failing’ in some way if I’ve missed out on a regular linky or the stats have dropped off because I haven’t written and then promoted a post properly.

I am currently on holiday for a week (physically, with the family!) and I told myself I would attempt to have a bit of a blogging holiday too. All I have done is write and draft a few ‘easy’ posts and scheduled them in advance so that things don’t lay dormant for too long. I know that this is a good thing. I know that I will benefit from this headspace. Sometimes these blog targets we impose on ourselves become so all encompassing that we can’t see the wood for the trees (and for me – why? Its not even like I’ve attempted to monetise my little corner of cyberspace or even engaged with PRs).

I recently read The Blog Lowdown on the lovely Reading Residence courtesy of Hurrah for Gin this week and took a lot of notice, for here is a blogger who appears to post relatively sporadically, but who is well known within the circles I blog in, receiving twice, three times or even four times more comments on a post than I have had on even my most popular posts and nominated for recent prestigious blogging awards (rightly so and nominated by myself too I might add!). And she doesn’t appear to do it for money or stuff or any kind of gain really. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not comparing or questioning – the fact of the matter is that she writes very funny, dry, honest and heartfelt pieces very well and is clearly a lovely person who others warm to – one of those people who you think, “yeah, I’d want you to be my friend” after five minutes familiarising yourself with her witty, beautifully self-illustrated, charming blog.

So I was interested to read her take on what makes her blog tick and her list of tips on blogging in general. The one that struck me the most was the advice to avoid blogging too much to the linky schedule. She says ‘It’s your blog, nobody else’s so you should be in the driving seat’. This one really resonated with me because nowadays, I find it hard to be bothered with a post unless it’s attached to a linky (this being a case in point I guess although Jocelyn & Iona’s theme for The Theme Game this week happens to fit in perfectly with things I have been thinking about a lot lately anyway!).

I suddenly feel like I am getting it all wrong; that I am missing out on more relaxed personal space of an evening, more variety of entertainment and more time to actually engage with my family rather than getting increasingly frustrated if their neediness delightful and continual interruptions jar my blog flow. Its just not good karma – it feels like my cosmic microcosm of life is out of balance somehow. I need to write less, read and engage more. Its probably as simple as that. You take the pressure off yourself and you focus on doing what you love (whether it be writing, socialising/cyber-socialising, reading, cinematic pursuits, baking, knitting, singing, ukelele or skydiving).

So watch this space (but not too closely, I’m on holiday, remember 🙂 )

PS the picture above is less a true representation of my current holiday than a picture of a toddler with chicken pox crying at a very large adventure playground would be…