OPEN

Image: A stop sign, a subconscious variety of which has apparently been put up in front of whatever delicate mental ecosystem lets me be a blogger… (Credit: Afroswede (cc))

Let’s be frank about it: I’m battling a severe, morbid case of necrotic blogger’s blog, a.k.a blog clog, a.k.a. blog drought, a.k.a. losing my blog mojo.

Just because I’m blogging right now doesn’t mean it’s over. I think it’s like one of those 12 step things – I’ve got to accept I’ve got a problem, talk about it publicly and then work on my long-term recovery.

Who knows what the causes are. Some blame blog blocks on Twitter – certainly it’s been giving me some of the social networking buzz that blogging once did. I’ve sometimes suspected that leaving behind my beloved OneNote + Windows Live Writer workflow when I shifted over to a Mac upset my delicate blogista’s constitution.

I was also feeling pressure to write elsewhere, which combined with other commitments. Well, I’ve dropped the Brand Republic blog a while back and I have a new plan for my corporate blog, so that’s all feeling a lot clearer.

Blogging is something I have to squeeze in between a fairly demanding job*, equally demanding young family** and occasionally sleeping***. On that last point, I’d actually been sleeping more over the past six months – so we’ll just have to knock that on the head…

I think in part it has been a subconcious drifting away from my philosophy of a blog as a public notebook. If the excellent Online Journalism Blog’s notes on a book called Making Online News: The Ethnography of New Media Production is to be believed:

“More than one blogger said a key turning point in the way they practice blogging was the moment they felt the gaze of the public eye. Realizing that people are paying attention … has led these bloggers to adopt a more careful, dispassionate approach and tone.”

One blogger is quoted as saying this “has led to less opinionating and more reporting and thoughtful analysis:”

“I was more creative when I started, now I’m more deliberate … I started trying to be more professional … Once I got to 100 readers I started to get more organized and started to take more responsibility for what I posted. Then I started to restrict what I put up there … I’ve ducked a couple of issues recently … because I wanted to be better informed. I didn’t want to be wrong … so I just avoided the topic.”

I totally buy that. And it’s ridiculous. And I’ve written so little recently I doubt many people are listening anymore, so that should make a blogging reboot fairly starightforward, no?

Anyhow, point is, blogging’s worth working at, fighting for, hanging on with all my strength.

I know that sometimes people blogging about blogging is the most dreary thing in the world – just skip over ’em, it just me trying to piece my blogging back together.

Every day in every way…

* Which I love.

** Which I love even more.

*** Overrated, but necessary.