Blogging: My Three Mistakes
My first mistake is that I have not been posting regularly here, because I thought that I had to post only about my GMing workbook. That project has been progressing nicely, and I was posting portions of my current draft as I completed them.
Yet that meant that I was only posting when I felt that something was “blog ready” or “blog worthy”. A great deal of the current manuscript is not good material for a blog because it is a collection of parts that are used to build the complete product with. Those parts do not make good blog material by themselves, but then again they are not meant to make good blog material. Tying that work to this blog was the wrong thing to do.
Another mistake was to think that I needed to blog about my current project in order to keep people interested in something that is not yet ready. My GMing workbook manuscript is about halfway done, but then it will need to go through one round of editing to ensure that it is a coherent piece. It is going to take some time and a lot more work before it is ready to share with others.
Posting about how I finished section two or completed the location worksheet just because I want readers to be interested in the final product when it comes out is not a good thing to do. I am working on a GMing workbook, and if you like my work on Gnome Stew then your anticipation for my first solo project will emerge when the project is closer to completion. Trying to create artificial and premature buzz is just wasted energy.
I unintentionally turned this blog into a chore. I kept pushing myself to blog only about things relevant to Fudge, or gaming, or one of my projects. That resulted in my third and biggest mistake which was to decide not to post daily. I was using my current workload as an excuse not to expose my genuine self to the world. Instead of expressing myself I was trying put that self expression into some kind of context. I was missing the whole point of why a person should have a blog.
In other words, I do not need to force gaming related material out of me, because I am a gamer. It will simply appear naturally in my posts because that is who I am.
The reason to write a blog is to express yourself. That is all the reason that you need to start one, and it is all that you need to focus on when maintaining one. I missed posting daily articles, so I am back to a daily posting schedule once again. This time though I am just going to express myself.
Good for you! What you’ve said is pretty much why my lostheroesrpg blog is dead. Though I did find I posted thoughts and notes on G+ about my progress with that because of it’s social/informal form.
I continue to be amazed that people are able to post so regularly on blogs on specific topics. I game but I don’t get enough content per week just on that topic.