Blogging in bursts

Once in a while the need to write grows and grows and grows, until it overtakes whatever ideas or machinery or habits I have that stand in the way of writing.

Then, sometimes, I write. Like now.

But not always. Most often I solve it the easy way: by finding a way to keep on not writing. To do that I have to contend with the parts of me that want to write.  They can get quite upset with their lot, and with me. I've evolved strategies for dealing with them. But periodically those strategies break down.

Like now. And I write something.

Sometimes I solve the problem methodically, by writing a bunch of stuff and back-dating it, or by using the blogger option that lets me set a future date. Or by writing a draft, intending to come back to it later. Or by telling myself I'll write the other stuff, and then not writing it. That usually leads to frustration and a lot of mental energy spent dealing with the frustration, rather than just fucking writing. But sometimes to bursts of creativity.

Like, I hope, now.

These methods have drawbacks. The not writing method makes the parts of me that want to write (and there are many of them) unhappy. The "parts of me that want to write" also includes (as I learned today) "the things in my head that want to be written." That's something I plan to write about, too. Maybe even today.

The back-dating approach seems like cheating. And the people who get my posts emailed to them (I think there might be three of us) won't get them emailed. Sucks to disappoint what little audience I have that way.

Forward dating is a problem because I want to post on G+ when I write a new blog post, and that does not happen automatically. Why do I even care to do that? It's the sharing compulsion, something else I need to write about.

If I cared about sharing, and not just about finding excuses not to write, I could remind myself to share after I post. I do, after all, subscribe to my own blog, and I do get email then day after I post. So I can fix that one, easily, thank you.

The writing a draft solution does not work because I often don't go back to my drafts and finish them. Right now I've got 97 unpublished drafts, for this blog alone. But I could do something about that.

Why don't I do something that makes sense?

So here's my current plan, subject, as always to revision and to dereliction. I've got a spreadsheet with my writing ideas. That includes this one. As I write stuff, it will get checked off. If it's planned to post in the future, that goes in the spreadsheet. If it's not complete, then that, too.

So here's another post on posting. Sometimes that leads to a flurry. Sometimes not. We'll see.

In any case: one down.