I fell off the Blog-Wagon again. It’s been…YIKES! Two months?
A lot has happened in the past months; a new relationship ♥, new JETs arriving, visiting home after a year, and dealing with grief while abroad.
It’s not as if I haven’t thought about blogging. I have brainstormed and drafted a bunch of posts. I had even planned out a new blog series and posted a few writings. However, I bit off more than I could chew and was unable to follow through with my ideas. But despite all of that I am not giving up. As an aspiring teacher, I do my best to embrace my failures and learn from them.
While contemplating how I blog (or don’t) I found a few of the things that held me back:
Over Planned, But Planned NO Writing Time
My best example is the extensive list of drafted posts and my color coded planner. I had each week planned out – topics, readings, and when to post – but none of that mattered when I hadn’t carved out time to actually finish the readings and write about them. My schedule time had too much flexibility. If I want to succeed then writing time must become as non-negotiable as work and sleep.
Tried to be an Over Achiever
See above.
The Ghost Student series was really ambitious for me. I don’t regret it, but I will have to put it on hiatus. I piled it on top of travel posts and my some hundred hobbies without proper commitment. In a way, I underestimated the difficulty of ghosting a graduate level syllabus and working full time in a foreign country.
Lost Focus
It’s not rare to lost sight of what you are doing or why. In the past, I have struggled with the very essence of what my blog should be. When I lose focus I begin to doubt myself and overthink. I thought I had finally found it, but it seems I need to go back to the drawing board again.
The Good News
The good news in all this is that I have learned a lot about myself and the basics of blogging. Here are three solutions I have found in reflecting on the last two months/year.
Baby Steps A.K.A. Keep Moving Forward
As a new blogger it is easy for me to imagine interesting posts with awesome photos. But taking on too much without a plan it disastrous. I need to go back to the basics and take my first blogging baby steps again. This doesn’t mean I’m scrapping Holm is This Way but rather I need to commit to a reasonable blogging schedule and hone my blog over time. Essentially, I must keep moving forward to make real progress.
Committing a day and time
While I talked about baby steps above I would like to focus on committing a day and time for writing. As a child I struggled with time. When I did activities, projects, or chores I could not gage how much time it took to complete my tasks. It doesn’t come naturally to me and it is something I have worked on a lot over the years with trial and error.
When I started this blog I had thought strict planning would be key, but despite all my planning I never really committed a day and time for writing and kept pushing it off to the side even when I didn’t have to.
So now I am committing my Monday 8-9pm to writing posts.
Acceptance
Failure happens. It happens often if you are lucky. Failure is how I learn best. I like reflecting on the experience and learning from it to do better (or perfect) next time. It takes a lot of acceptance. I have to accept my embarrassment and frustration and then move past it. I need to learn not to dwell on past mistakes.
Posts you can expect in the near future:
Grief Aboard: Dealing and Reeling
Third Time’s the Charm: I’m going to Win NaNoWriMo 2016
Flowers, Flowers, and More Flowers: Ikenobo Photos ’15-’16
Karatsu Kunchi: The Soul of Karatsu City
Holm is this Way 
Oh, Avery, what I just finished reading sounds so much like it was me doing the writing! I feel as if you must be channeling me, somehow! And nearly sharing a birthday isn’t the reason – especially since there must be 50+ years and one day in age between us.
My life since September 10 is even more like what you described, then it ever was, and I too, have come to the realization that it will take baby steps to get my life moving forward again. I do have some plans made for the future, and even have wondered if I could manage to pull off a visit to Japan to see you next summer. That is of course also dependent upon you still living and working there, as well as my physical ability to do that type of traveling next year.
Are you still making plans to come home to Buffalo for Christmas this year? Would love to spend some time over the holidays with you and your folks, too, “remembering”.
All the best to you in the weeks ahead, and I’ll be looking forward to reading your next post,
Daryle
Hi Daryle! I hope you are doing well. I’m glad that you can relate to this post. I will be in Japan next summer. I’m thinking of doing one more year. So please come visit if you are able! I would love to show you my Japanese hometown. I will be home this winter. I will send you an email with more information. Cheers!