To Post or Not To Post Every Day

I posted to my blog every day in the month of January, which gave me some sense of accomplishment in a month that didn't treat my novel too well. (I spent a good three weeks on Chapter 7 alone).

The feeling of accomplishment, though, is overshadowed by knowing that some of my posts were complete crap. Some days I just got too busy - whether it was because I was working overtime (which is happening more and more often), meeting friends for dinner, finishing a portrait that needed to get done, or getting into the groove of my novel - and, on those days, my blog posts didn't carry much value to me; they were just something I felt I had to do to accomplish my NaBloPoMo goal.

Without a doubt, there's value in NaBloPoMo and how it holds me accountable to writing every day. There's something about putting your words out onto the Web that makes me accountable, that gives me the added push I need to make sure I take at least a few minutes out of my day to write, no matter how busy I am. But it killed me to add just random filler onto my blog, for the simple purpose of filling the monthly 'quota,' if you will. I don't like filler and I don't like writing about my personal life.

My blog isn't for me to vent (well, most of the time it isn't). My blog is not my diary, in which I share myself to the world. I'm an introverted, private person. And I like it that way.

Instead, the purpose of my blog is to write about writing, to document my journey into the world of fiction writing and publishing, as well as to depict how I face the challenges and joys of writing/revising my first novel. (Well, I should say 'second novel' but I wrote my first novel when I was seventeen and other than 200 pages of teenage angst and a stack of rejection letters, not too much came out of it. Let's just say that first novel was my set of training wheels. The novel I'm currently working on, that will get published one day, is my real 'first' novel).

My blog is also a place where I share what inspires me to write, and a place for other writers to come to be inspired, too. At least that's what I hope. When I write filler or random posts just to say I posted that day, I'm not really fulfilling my goal.

At the same time, I don't want to return to only writing a post or two a month. I like that I've been posting more, coming up with new 'writing' categories and topics. (See my post, Taking Stock, for those categories.) In that way especially, writing every day has helped me be a bit more creative with the way I approach 'writing about writing.'

So, that's my manifesto for this blog. Now, back to actually 'writing about writing.'

NaBloPoMo

Not too long ago, I found this website, www.nablopomo.com, which encourages people to post every day to their blog for an entire month. I signed up for the month of January, so expect to hear from me each and every day.

Considering that I usually only post a couple times a month, this might be hard for me. I also am kind of worried that I might be sacrificing quality for quantity.

Then again, I think the principles behind NaBloPoMo are good ones that I've heard time and time again from my creative writing professors over the years: write every day; no matter how crappy you think your ideas or writing is that day, get to the page and put pen to paper, or, in this case, cursor to Blogger post. But, as always, I'll strive to only put intresting stories or thoughts I have on my blog each and every day. This is definitely an experiment; we'll see how this works out, or if it even does. =)

For those that read my blog, I do urge you to comment on my postings. Tell me what you like (and don't) about my posts. I find both comments and criticisms useful in that they help me generate even more ideas for future posts! So, here's to writing each and every day!