I've grown mentally tired of late. It's reflected on this blog. The posts have slowed down and many times the content is just dashed off. It's not because I don't know what I want to write about, it's because I don't know how. I can't connect the dots yet. My daily hit count has fallen off a cliff.
Work is devouring a lot of mental energy as well. Arguing, thinking, planning, talking, meeting and the rest, it can be draining. I usually come home from work with a numb brain. Working with my daughter has been similarly taxing for a variety of reasons.
We have family friends with a 20-year-old son. I loaned him a book of Jack Williamson science fiction stories a while back and recently he told me that he had enjoyed them. I discovered he had never read any Robert Heinlein, so this afternoon I stopped by a used book store and bought him Tunnel in the Sky and The Rolling Stones. I just dropped them off at their house and wrote a little inscription to him in one of them.
I've got a lot more energy now.
Make of that what you will.
This is why I stopped blogging, not that I'm suggesting you do! but I could no longer sit up late and function properly next day. I do renovations, you need to be alert, you need energy and you need to be up early in the morning. I thought I might get back to it one day but the longer I'm away from it the less likely that seems so I content myself with a bit of commenting and that has to do.
ReplyDeleteThat was one of the things I was worried about happening to me when I started blogging, which is why I decided to pace myself at one post a week. On the weeks where I have time for more than that[1], I just queue them up for future weeks rather than publishing immediately. That way, I not only avoid burnout[2], I also have the opportunity to review and edit them for a while before they go public.
ReplyDelete[1] Granted, my postings take on the order of 2-3 hours to write, so a daily schedule would be insane unless I didn't have anything else to do.
[2] There used to be a blog called "Insect Picture of the Day" which was roughly similar to mine and started at about the same time, except that he opted for a daily schedule. Unfortunately, it was too much for him and he flamed out after about a year.
Thanks for the comments. There have been times when I've thought of hanging it up, but instead I decide to just post something easy for a while and take a break that way. I think that if I quit I'd miss it in a few days - that's about how long it takes for me to find something I just have to get off my chest.
ReplyDeleteAs for the frequency of the posting, that goes back to the original purpose of the blog - to make money with advertising. That was a total dud, but now it's a matter of personal honor not to miss a day. Silly, I know, but there it is.
I also made a decision to try and stay away from personal attacks. I'm a natural polemicist, but a day later, I hate the way I feel for writing mounds of vitriol attacking someone I've never met. The decision to try to tone it down has put a damper on my creativity as well.
But attacking people is such fun! Specially so when they deserve it, now take Obummer, please......
ReplyDeleteHow we ever got a jug eared-African- post-colonial-Marxist-narcissist-all-round-nasty-piece-of-work in the White House will surely qualify as one of the weirdest things of the century unless something happens like Brad leaving Angelina for Rosie O'Donnell then all bets are off.
KT,
ReplyDeleteOur work place is occasionally demoralizing because it is insane, so I get how it can wear. As an aside, when one considers that we work in one of the better run agencies of the federal government, it only reinforces the notion that government should be limited to its absolute minimal essential functions.
Nice choice on the Heinlein.
I wonder what it is we lose that causes us to give up SF, or is it just that we grow up some.
ReplyDelete