Saturday, January 19, 2008, 3:31pm
The “One And Done” Blogger Syndrome
Just like workers in other professions, sometimes a blogger will fall into a rut. One problem that manifests itself during a rut is the notion of “if I just squeeze out this post I can move on”. In other words, an author will begin to force ideas just to publish a post.
I call this the “One and Done” syndrome because what you’re really doing is taking away from the continuous nature of a blog - that is, the idea that a blog is a stream of ideas and that you are constantly reading and learning and building upon those ideas has now become merely an exercise.
Now people disagree on the best way to break out of a rut, and some will argue that you need to just “work through” the rough patches by forcing yourself to write, especially if you are a professional writer. From personal experience and in dealing with clients from a blog consulting perspective, I don’t believe this is necessarily the best advice.
Now I’m not saying you shouldn’t write AT ALL while you’re in a rut. In fact, writing something else besides a blog post could be helpful and spur some new ideas. I’m just saying is that chaining yourself to your computer until you post is probably not going to be all that effective.
Put simply, if you don’t have something to say, don’t say anything. What’s the point? If you really feel you need to post something, why not publish a list of your latest bookmarks and why you bookmarked them? That could act as a springboard to new ideas by forcing you to revisit recent websites that you found interesting.
Photo by rashdan.
