I have noticed an intriguing paradox emerging as I blog daily. When I first started this process, I felt compelled to make sure I had the following day’s blog scheduled for posting the next day. This went double for travel days.
I have seen my compulsion dissipate over the last week or so. Tuesday I flew back from the east coast and I went to sleep with a half-written post. I was confident enough in my blogging habit that I knew I could just finish it and post it in the morning. And that is exactly what happened.
At the same time that I have seen my confidence in daily blogging growing, I am finding myself running short of ideas. I used up my backlog a while back. Now I must rely on external sources for inspiration.
I am not sure how to reconcile my confidence in my ability to blog daily with my paucity of ideas. To date, it has always worked out ok. But I still have a lingering concern that I might just get completely blocked one of these days. After all, I still have a week worth of posts to write before the Blogathon ends. I can just hear Han Solo in the back of my mind admonishing me “don’t get cocky, kid!”
I do have a secret weapon that is keeping me from getting freaked out.
For a variety of reasons my long-absent mojo has returned with a vengeance. I had really forgotten what it was like to have so much creative energy and I am indescribably thrilled to have it back. This time I am older (definitely) and wiser (maybe, somewhat) and don’t take my restored mojo for granted. I am curious to see how far I can go before hitting diminishing returns. I am not saying I want to go back to the 70 hour weeks that I worked at CubeSpace. I am saying that I believe I can access multiple outlets without diminishing any of them. In fact, there may even be a synergistic effect from feeding different aspects of myself.
I think the answer to my paradox is that I now trust the process way more than I did at the outset. Unconsciously, I know that if I spend enough of my day being creative, something will emerge for me to write about.