I’ve been at this blog experiment for almost 11 months now and I’ll be honest, there are times when utter panic sets in.
Within my six-days-a-week writing schedule, anxiety over coming up with a topic takes hold about three times a week. Usually, after taking a pause and deep breath, sometimes walking away, the light bulb comes on—sometimes a really dim bulb—and the writing flows.
One of my greatest concerns about writing so frequently is that the content will become diluted or seem forced. And often it does.
When Word Nymph was born in March of last year, it was fun. It was new. The ideas and the writing flowed effortlessly. Today, I’ve sat here for hours, staring at a blank screen, having scoured newspapers, magazines, my bookcase, my imagination and all my online sources. Nada.
Just as my palms got clammy and my heart raced to a frightening clip, I remembered a blog post my cousin pointed me to earlier in the week. It made me feel better and worse at the same time.
This remarkable blogger, writing under the name of The Digital Cuttlefish, articulated graphically the challenges of keeping up with a daily blog. In a post entitled The Care and Feeding of Dragons, the writer first puts forth an unattributed quote: “A blog is like a dragon. You have to feed it all the time and sometimes you get burned.”
In the post, Mr. or Ms. Cuttlefish hit the nail on the head. Blogging is easy at first. But, like the dragon, this beast must be fed, preferably a meaty and steady diet, or it will eat you alive.
I took a tiny bit of comfort in Cuttlefish’s words because I no longer felt alone in my anxiety. Also, Cuttlefish put a face to my fear with this hungry dragon.
Once I finished reading the Dragon post and scrolled down to get a feel for Cuttlefish’s other writings, my jaw dropped. I could no longer put myself in the company of this blogger. Yes, he/she too posts about six days a week. But every post—every single post—is written in rhyme.
I must know: What does the Digital Cuttlefish eat for breakfast?
Word Nymph 
If you treat your blog as a bit of a lark (as I do), then the material and the writing thereof become quite easy to handle. In other words, feed the dragon with bits (and bytes!) of scrap and it’ll be happy as a clam!
I look for the times
That reality rhymes,
When faced with the writer’s-block curse;
Perusing the news
For some clues I can use,
I just think–hey, things could be verse!
Thank you for the kind words. My secret is much much like thenakedlistener in your first comment–treat it as a bit of a lark. Doggerel verse is easy, so long as you don’t worry too much about it being poetry. I long ago realized I don’t write poetry, and that was quite freeing. Over half of what I post is what any decent writer would consider a first draft, ready for revision and polishing, or discarding. Me, I post it and move on. Some, of course, take a bit longer–but oddly enough, those are not typically my favorites when I finish.
I’m very glad to have found your blog–as you might guess, I love words. And nymphs, too, for that matter, even the dragonfly ones that look like every nightmare monster ever.
Breakfast… Greek yogurt w/nuts and fruit, coffee, and a big bowl of Dragon Chow.
I started the New Year by posting nearly every day. I soon realized that was impractical for me. Now I post Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. I’m comfortable with that pace.
I follow a lot of blogs and actually wish more of them would only write 3 days a week. I think many of them have three good posts a week in them, and the rest of the week is full of angst or filler.
Yeah, I kinda agree with you there – I follow about 200 blogs of all subjects, for professional purposes and also for pleasure. You’re very observant: many do have two or three good posts a week. As for myself, I think I’m in my “hyper” period and have been posting a bit more than three posts weekly – but that’s because I’m now living in Hong Kong and the place is swirling with, err, ‘scuse my French, craptastic distractions that just can’t go unremarked. But my life as a printer is one long emergency so I try to be a couch potato whenever I can – so I often think about how to cut down on the blogging! Nice reversal from the main trend, I suppose.