Five Questions to ask yourself when you lose the will to Blog

A couple of Sundays ago I was curled up on the sofa catching up on a bit of Mr Robot with the hubs when I realised that – for pretty much the first time since I started this whole blogging malarkey – I didn’t have a post scheduled for Monday morning. I’ve strictly stuck to a Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule since November, always making sure I was scheduled a week ahead, and up until a couple of weeks ago I hadn’t found it that difficult. But bam! Out of nowhere I found myself lagging behind. Funnily enough, I think Sunny was more stressed about it than I was (he’s more into page views and numbers than I am – weird), “What are you going to write about?” he asked, and despite having a whole stock of ideas for just such an emergency, I just shrugged.

Friday came and went. Nothing went up. The likelihood is that nobody really noticed. But I did, and it bothered me.

Let’s be clear. This is not writer’s block… it’s more like I’ve suddenly run out of steam.  I’m all out of motivation not just to blog, but to keep up with the promotional side that’s all part and parcel of the whole blogging game. Don’t get me wrong, I’m having a blast. Blogging is great fun, albeit a lot of hard work. But, I think every blogger reaches that point – probably in the first year – where they suddenly get fed up and question what they’re doing, why they’re doing it and how their little corner of the online world fits into the ever growing blogging “community”…or not.

So these are the questions banging around in my head as I try to get my blogging mojo back.

1. Why did I start Blogging?

You know what it’s like; there’s that initial spark – that rush of excitement – when you first start blogging. Setting up your blog is a lot like decorating your first apartment, and those first comments, likes and follows give you that buzz and the validation to power on and keep doing your thing. Then, a few months down the line you’re exhausted. You’re buffering posts like crazy and scheduling your dinner around Twitter chats and have completely forgotten why you even started in the first place. Asking why you became a blogger should help realign your focus to what matters most and work out what your blogging “reason d’etre” is.

2. What do I want to get out of this?

Definitely linked to question one; asking yourself what you’re hoping to get out of blogging might help create some goals to work towards.

3. What kind of Blogger am I?

As soon as you start blogging it’s easy to feel like you’re a very small fish in a very big pond. It’s er… a bit crowded, let’s be honest. You start comparing yourself to other bloggers and then you might even start adjusting what you write about to suit what everyone else is writing. I recently came to the honest conclusion that when it comes to blogging, I’m a square peg in a round hole (not that’s a bad thing..!). I’m a thirty year old with split ends who cares far more about that little avocado seed sprouting on her windowsill and history books about dead people than about rose gold sunglasses and NARS sheer glow.  #Luxelife I most definitely am not. I’m just not that kind of blogger and if I tried to be, I wouldn’t enjoy it. When I started out I unknowingly branded myself as a mud-loving, welly-wearing writer, and that’s who I need to stay true to. It’s 100% likely there will be people of there who don’t want to read about that, and would probably rather read about rose gold sunglasses than my muddy walk. Oh well. You can’t win ’em all. The lesson? Write as if no one’s reading. 🙂

4. Do I need to make a change?

There’s nothing wrong with feeling you need to change something. Maybe there’s something that’s just not working. Maybe you’ve been sticking to a three day schedule and just can’t keep up. Maybe you’ve started a series that just isn’t working out how you thought it would and you’re sooo ready to ditch it. Maybe you’re bored of your layout, your photography. Maybe you’re fed up of WordPress and want to move over to Blogger, or vice versa. Change is good.

5. Do I need a break?

Sometimes you just need to take a step back. For me, I was sick of the promotion side of blogging and felt like I needed a break from it. Twitter chats had begun to infuriate me because I started to feel like I was just answering the same question over and over again. The whole point was to “connect” with other bloggers but for me it had suddenly felt like I was just regurgitating the same answers to the same questions and getting the same “YES THIS” response over and over again. I actually turned my phone off (for real, the actual off button) when one chat asked what I’d do if my Instagram account got deleted. Umm… I’d live? I was ready to type out 100 characters of full on snark. That was my wake up call. I was  bored and fed up and needed a break.

What do you do when you lose the will to blog? 🙂