Misgivings and Doubt

One of my favorite Valve Caps

Because I publicly challenged myself to post every day for the month of April, self induced pressure to perform created misgivings and doubt.  Misgivings and doubt are the seeds of writer's block.  At least that has been my experience over the last 12 years I have been blogging.  The trick is to forge ahead and damn the result.  People either liked it or did not.  First and foremost I need to write for myself.

With the challenge to myself in mind, I tried to come up with a strategy to make sure I posted every day.  What I taught myself before was to have scheduled posts waiting to be posted in case I failed that day to perform as promised.  After all, I am in the beginning of my busy season at the bike shop and every word I type in the morning is accompanied by a heap full of guilt for not being at the bike shop with my nose to the grindstone.

If writing is helping me stay sane or balanced or just feeling better, well, this can only benefit my efforts at the bike shop in the long run.  And honestly, I think it has.  The time I spend at the shop now is more productive.  I feel more on top of the Spring rush than I have felt in a long time.  The therapy of writing everyday has made the transition from Winter slug to Ready Eddy much easier.

It may all just be a fig newton of my imagination.  If it works then why fight it?

I assume everyone with a Google type blog has the same dashboard setup I have.  I always open the dashboard to the posts page.  At the top right, a total tally of posts is shown, followed by a break down of those posts published and those posts existing as drafts.  I noticed the other day that out of the 1664 posts I have, 434 are in draft status.  434 posts I at least started and for one reason or another did not publish.

There might be some untapped semi riches there I thought.  I filtered out the published from the unpublished and began checking the drafts out.  After thumbing through the first 50 or so, I realized that most of them sat cooling their heels on the bench for good reason.  They were not ready for prime time.  I did find a couple though that I thought had promise.

I decided that if nothing comes to mind any given day, I would go to my bench for a pinch hitter.  The benefits would be two fold.  I could start cleaning up the mess that exists behind the colorful and eye catching wonder that is my blog page and work on my editing skills.  I have also learned over the past 12 years that the ability to edit one's work is absolutely key in the effort to become a better writer.

And here we are now.  I have successfully met my daily commitment by writing about how I am going to meet my daily commitment.  It doesn't get any better than this.

Keep it 'tween the ditches ......................................................






xxI knew I could pen some words everyday, but would I be satisfied with them?