Blogging Challenges

I just saw a post by a relatively new blogger - I’m Back… and What Happened?

In it, Angela tells us about how she "fell behind" in her blogging and then found she had trouble "catching up" ...

• Then, I started saving “clippings” that I planned to respond to but fell behind and the subjects got old.
• Did I mention that I fell behind and everything that I was excited about seemed to get “old”?
• Then I thought I had to “catch up” in order to post again.

I can understand her sense of concern about how quickly subjects come and go in the blogosphere. However, there is now way that you can keep up and weigh in on every subject / conversation going on out there. It's just too much. Instead, you have to pick subjects that interest you or that you can relate to your work. There is no "keeping up" nor "catching up" ... there's only letting go.

The harder question is what to do when you are behind and there's a great subject that interests you, but it's been a couple weeks since anyone posted about it. My personal feeling is that if you have something to add to the conversation, it's still good to weigh in on it. The reason is that while you may not get much response or interaction, it still helps you complete your thoughts around the subject (that interested you).

Angela also told us:

Plus, I was so incredibly inspired about my work in the last three weeks that I worked harder than ever before and I was too tired to post at the end of the day!

It's ok to have time off from your blog, it will hurt readership and hurts conversation a bit, but that happens to pretty much everyone. On the flip side, if you are incredibly busy with something that's inspiring you, how about sharing about that. Start a new conversation around whatever you are doing. Or just talk about what's going on. Take a look at Wendy's blog - In the Middle of the Curve. She does a wonderful job of capturing what she's dealing with day-to-day, how she has approached things, what works, what doesn't, what she is concerned about. It's really an incredible case study. Maybe you can't do as much with your blog, but still capture what's inspiring you.