Blogger’s block

I want to write, but I don’t know what to write about. I feel like I’ve kind of painted myself into a corner where I only really blog about two different things. Hiking trips I’ve taken and technical howtos. (I’m not counting neatlinks, that’s social bookmarking, not blogging.)

The technical howtos are easy, they practically write themselves, and I actually find them really satisfying to write because they’re so damn simple. That and they tend to be the posts I refer back to again and again. But I wouldn’t want my blog to consist of only those. Thank goodness their source of inspiration is sporadic.

The hiking posts are labors of love, heavy emphasis on labor. Writing about a hike is essentially writing about walking. Sometimes it’s hard to make interesting. And I find that the effort involved to select, resize, and retouch a bunch of photos and then to write about the experience requires totally different parts of my brain—thus two or more days to execute. Reading my blog you might think that my life consists of hopping from National Park to National Park. (That actually sounds like kind of a nice life.)

It’s just that I feel like I’ve really gotten away from writing about the impromptu, the daily life stuff, which is half the fun of blogging. I also feel like I’ve gotten away from taking risks, either in function or form. But for crying out loud, I’ve been blogging here non-stop for over 6 years. It’s kind of hard to stay original for that long.

So yeah, I really hate blogging about blogging, or vomiting a bunch of stream-of-consciousness stuff out on my blog (especially when I have nothing else concrete to write). I guess I’m just trying to get this out of my system. Like maybe admitting I have a problem is the first step to recovery. So there. I’ve said it. I don’t know what to write about. I’m occasionally bored of my blog. And it’s autumn. I blame autumn. Fall is a depressing season. It always bums me out.

Monday, October 6, 2008 7:19pm
Blogging, Meta

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4 comments

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Joy
10/7/08 8:14am

Awww… See I like this post because you are blogging about what is going on in your head a bit, which is interesting to me. Anyway, I’m sure you will get the old blogging juices flowing again.

(I love autumn.)

marcia
10/7/08 12:45pm

I like Justin. In addition to hiking and doing technical things, your blog also shows that you eat food that is delicious.

Can I join your blogging 12-step program?

Autumn = Petaluma corn maze time. I think that is something you need to do. Coincidentally, I live in Petaluma.

Matthew (Brother)
10/7/08 7:59pm

Do you really have an autumn there? And why is it a depressing time? The colors. The cold. The holidays. The family gatherings. The traditions. The smell of wood burning fires. The first time I get to see my brother in a year. I smile inside and relive the smells, tastes, and events in my head of previous autumns.

justin
10/7/08 10:06pm

No actually September and October are our summer. It’s been really really nice here lately. But fall also seems to be a time of insecurity, a time of things ending (the year, the summer), a time of things in transition. I dunno.