Shaun Low

I think the hardest thing for a blogger is the moment that the initial newness and excitement wears off. You are faced with what is perhaps one of the hardest realizations: and that is, “I have to keep this going”.

As I have completed my first 100 blog posts on the Ignite blog, it is apparent that I’ve had ups and downs in blogging. There were some weeks where I would be on a roll and write a blog post daily, and yet other weeks when I breathed a sigh of relief that Jim or another Igniter posted something.

Surely, having a large of amount of client work has been one culprit to these inconsistencies, but quite often these were due to the difficulties of blogging itself. Many times I had come to a place where I thought, “I can’t think of anything to write about”, and felt the pain of scraping to find something else to write.

Last week, I finally read a blog post that put this feeling into writing, and if you are a blogger I highly suggest reading it. It was an article entitled, “Leaning into the Blogging Dip“, written by Darren Rowse over at ProBlogger, and was partly a review of Seth Godins book “The Dip“, combined with his own experiences as a blogger and his commitments to overcoming his struggles. In short, this article put a finger on exactly what I have felt as a blogger - while giving perhaps the best advice I’ve heard in how to deal with it.

His advice? You’ve got to lean into it. Don’t try to convince yourself you need a “blogging vacation”, or that you need to wait until you are “inspired”. Instead, he has shared the following promises he is going to use to push through his “blogging dips”:

* I need to write when I don’t think I’ve got anything new to say
* I’ve got to write when I’ve got too much to say.
* I’ve got to write when I learn something new so I can share it with my readers.
* I’ve got to write when I find something “old” that’s valuable and convince my readers that it’s worth examining.
* I’ve got to write when I feel confident and relaxed.
* I’ve got to write when every word that comes out seems like crap.
* And I’ve got to write during all of the times in between.

After reading these, I’ve decided to commit to this same philosophy, and will probably pick up a copy of Seth’s book to get even more inspired.

So here’s to 100 more posts, and pushing through the dips along the way!

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About the author:
As a Social Media Strategist for Ignite Social Media, Lisa McNeill outlines social media tactics and develops social media campaigns to help companies reach customers and build brand advocates. Her expertise in project management and marketing additionally guides the execution of these campaigns.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 18th, 2008 at 9:01 am and is filed under Blogging. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.