Does this happen to anyone else?
I have been blogging since January and up until recently I have loved it. I have never been short of ideas, posts have tripped off my fingers and I have always been able to say what I want to say without tying myself up in knots.
But not anymore. Right now I am feeling a bit bleurgh about blogging.
What do I mean by feeling bleurgh? Well, I have lost inspiration. Not that I don’t have lots of ideas – I do, I have lists of them and keep adding to that list. But for some reason none of them grab me right now. And when I run through that list, I end up feeling even more bleurgh. Thoughts run through my head – why would anyone want to know about this? I think someone else has written about this already. Everyone else writes so much better than I do. No-one is interested.
And all I end up doing is either writing a particularly uninspired post (which either does or doesn’t see the light of day – depending on how bad it is) or writing nothing,
Now there could be a few reasons for this bleurghness. I have been fairly distracted this summer, moving from the UK to South Africa. I was lucky enough to have a whole league of brilliant guest bloggers who ensured my blog wasn’t just tumbleweed and crickets during the days when I was packing, moving, goodbying, flying, unpacking, settling….But brilliant and brilliantly helpful as this was, it did mean that I got out of the habit of frequent blogging.
And as all writers know, writing is like any sport – you need to use your muscles in order to keep up to speed. Let them get flabby and you need to get fit again before the words start to flow. I know I need to get back into the writing habit, which means I need to start having more of a routine.
I think this is probably the biggest problem. When we were at home in the UK, life had a rythm. I knew what happened when at each point of the day, I knew when I had my writing/blogging time and I knew when I didn’t. Here, I am still a bit all over the place (just things like shopping for food takes so much longer as I just don’t know where to find everything – so I can find myself going out to various supermarkets several times a week) and thus my spare “writing” time doesn’t always conincide with the time when I feel most able to write. At least, to write coherently.
I am also finding my concentration is shot, I get distracted by the smallest things (look a new bird! Oh, I need to look up that new German bakery someone recommended), and I am not using my spare time wisely.
But I know I need to get back on top of things. Next month is a new month and I am planning to start being a little more organised with my time. I want to get back into routine, start working on some of the ideas I have, go back to some of my old “occasional” series’ like Memorable Journey’s and Interesting Expats, and perhaps start some new ones. Somehow I need to get my blogging ooomph back, I need to get those words to flow again. I don’t know how to do it, hopefully it will happen naturally the more back into practise I get.
But if anyone has any tips or advice as to how I can stop feeling bleurgh about blogging, please do let me know 🙂
expatpartnersurvival.wordpress.com 
Hey, Clara,
I’m right there with you on this one. I haven’t written my blog for about four weeks now. I was writing religiously every day for months, and now I just can’t find the words or inspiration. I think a couple of things have contributed to my lack of writing; the first is that I now have a work permit and need to make money. Writing, unless you’re writing a best seller, or you have a viral blog, does not make money and so I’m back to my HR consulting work. Don’t get me wrong I love my HR work but it doesn’t leave time to be as creative as I’d like. On top of this I heard a few negative comments about my writing – mainly that I was writing too honestly / openly about my bad days or days when I felt low and that it was alienating readers. It was tough for me to share my innermost feelings from the start and after that feedback I felt I just wanted to crawl back into my emotional hole, to share only with those I trust most and rarely then!
Anyway, they’re my reasons, and I think what I’m saying is we all have off days when we have reasons not to write. I think what’s important is to keep trying. Although I’m not writing my personal blog I’m writing lots for my work, and I’m enjoying writing about something that’s less risky emotionally. Perhaps it would help to change it up – write about something that sparks your interest. I think when any of us start to write for our audience we lose some of the creativity. Write for you and soon the spark will return.
Becca x
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Thanks Becca. In really surprised you got negative feedback about writing too openly and honestly. I’ve always thought these are the most successful bloggers! You might be right about writing for me, not my audience. But then I’d feel I wasn’t being true to the reason for the blog which is to offer support to expat partners. Perhaps I just need to take some of the pressure off myself and not write if I feel I’ve nothing to say…..
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Perhaps just being you, being an expat and writing about the place you are emotionally is enough in terms of support. Like any expat or anyone for that matter, you have down days. Being honest about those is part of being human and I’m sure your readers will understand that. Or, let your readers know you’re having a short break to find some great content for them! Pull your guest bloggers back in and let them take the reigns until you feel that spark come back!
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I think you’re right. I’ll be looking out for guest posts and sorting out some interviews etc next week.
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Yes, I’m in that bleurgh spot too (great word, btw!), mainly because of the distractions, as you say. And exactly that same feeling of having ideas but wondering who’d want to read them… But I return to our distraction free island in a couple of weeks and will see if the bleurghness disappears.
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Good to hear it’s not just me…maybe it’s a summer thing… Even though it’s winter here (or at least Spring). I’ll never get used to that!
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I think it might be a summer thing. Even when I have managed to force myself to finish a draft and publish over the last few months, I’m then discouraged by how few people are actually reading at the moment. September should be a better month. It always feels to me like a new beginning – it’s always been the beginning of a new school year – and everyone gets back into their reading, blogging and commenting routines.
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Maybe I should start with getting back into a good routine of reading and commenting as well as writing…. There should be a back to blogging school course….
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You could always repeat Blogging U’s courses – I think they’re re-running a few this September.
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I didn’t write in mine the entire 6 weeks I was gone this summer. I jotted down some notes, etc, but there are just some times when I just don’t feel that urge. I have no less than 50 drafts started, but it’s matter of finishing them. When I get the urge, I can pump out a few at a time though!
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I need to switch off the internet and get on with it!
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Have a break, have a Kit Kat (or other treat of choice). Shut your laptop and go and take a picture of that interesting bird. I usually find if I step away from my computer and go and do something different, after a couple of days I want to start jotting things down again. Go and enjoy Pretoria and then come back and tell us about it. We’re waiting. 😉
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Having a glass of wine! Next week will be a new chapter hopefully….
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Great post Clara! Its something I feel sometimes too. Although I don’t share the opinion of some that you should write regularly just for the sake of it and also that a blog is a diary to vent your emotions on. Fair enough for some if that’s what they want to do but I think it makes for poor writing and if you are aiming to get readers then it’s not always an effective strategy. Putting your thoughts out there on the internet will mean you might get some responses you won’t like (I’ve had lots of positive comments but also some quite harsh and critical ones but I would rather have some people tell me it sucks in a constructive way so I can become a better writer. I tend to write something once a month where possible but only write when I feel I have an idea that might interest readers. I don’t see the point of writing to a schedule if the post is inane nonsense just for the sake of it.
One of the things I really like about your blog, the diversity of the posts and the experiences of expats around the world that you share.
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Thank you! It’s definitely important to get the balance right between blogging enough and blogging just for for the sake of it….I think I got too caught up in the idea that I had to post three times a week because this is what I decided to do. If I can cut myself free from this and actually blog when I have something to say rather than to a schedule it might work better….
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Keep up the good work and inspiration will come to you. One idea I thought of was a potted history of South Africa’s immigration. As an expat yourself, it would make interesting reading and I suppose research to look into the expatriates who came to SA originally as I believe it is quite diverse with the Boer community, Brits and Indians to name just a few. I’m sure a lot of people would love to read it 🙂
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Great idea and it would be really interesting for my own info as well. This is such an interesting country – it’s a place that you feel history all around you. It’s made me think about writing more about SA.
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A friend of mine has a blog and often posts v short posts with a line of the day, an inspiring picture or quote. Something v quick to post but still keeps him in the habit of posting. I think I might start doing that too once life gets busy with school from next week
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And I drive past a fantastic Mandela quote almost every day which I keep thinking I want to use!
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Hey Clara in case you haven’t noticed I always have quote and I collect them as I go and when it’s blog time I read through and one always triggers a topic and generally starts my first line …always works for me and when I’m writing a short story, a word or sentence, a picture is always my trigger it doesn’t always come to mind immediately but generally quite quick..hope this helps 🙂
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Yes he is and I hope he does more than watch very soon 🙂
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I have read quite a few bloggers write exactly what you are talking about, but they didn’t use the word ‘bleurgh’, which–shame on them! I am not a writer–I only post photos, but I was out of town for work for a week with no access to a computer (heaven!) and when I returned, I thought, ‘oh, dear, I need to start again.’ And I was stuck as to how to start again–to post a darn photo! I think we cycle through things, Clara. That’s a good thing. It gives you time to regroup, get your thoughts together (or not–your choice!). Maybe post as you feel like it. I had one blogger say she had more feedback when she posted 2-3 times a week as opposed to every day. Enjoy the down time. I’ll still keep reading your blog no matter when you post. Enjoy South Africa!
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Thank you Loisa and I so appreciate your support 😃 I usually only post 3 times a week, although sometimes more if I’ve already got posts scheduled but have something more I want to say. However I’m struggling to find time for even that at the moment. In fact I think this is one of the problems, not having the right amount of time to write the post the way I want it, so I’m not massively happy with the result so it puts me off writing the next one….let’s see what happens next week….
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