Keep spinning those pots

Obviously, when I was thinking about how Holidailies would go, a 2-week break in the middle was not in the plan. Life has been busy, but it was also pretty busy during the first nine days when I was writing. I think if I'm being honest, as much as anything, I was feeling inadequate to the task. I didn't feel like I had anything interesting to say, like no one was reading it even if I did, and why bother?

There's an element of truth to all that self-criticism: I'm not the writer I was when I had a year-plus streak of blogging, when I was also writing regularly in a pen-and-paper journal. I don't write as much as I used to, and it shows. But then, there's only one way to fix that: write more.

There was an experiment where they had two groups of art students, and they divided the students into two groups--one was told that their final grade in the class would be based on any one piece of art that they chose to submit, while the other was told that their grade would be based on the quantity of work that they produced. And in the end, the group that was being judged on quantity rather than quality also made better art. Just gotta keep spinning those pots (or whatever).

My blog has never been a high-traffic site, but even if there are even fewer people reading it now than at times in the past, so what? Someone's reading it (at least this time of year!), and those are some cool people whose blogs I also enjoy reading (or, at least, I did--I've got some catching up to do, because at the same time I wasn't writing, I wasn't reading). There would be value in doing the work even if no one was reading, and whatever community we find of fellow bloggers is a good thing, not to be denigrated as "less than."

Maybe it's a little seasonal blues combined with writer's block. I don't know. It is what it is, or was what it was, or whatever.

I think it's a natural human tendency, when we're trying to do something and fail in some way to just throw in the towel, to throw up our hands rather than getting back on the proverbial horse. You're on a diet, you have a cookie, next thing you know you spend the rest of the day--if not the rest of the week--binging, because you've already "ruined" your diet, as if there's no difference between one deviation from your plan and giving up entirely.  I've definitely been there, and I know I'm not the only one. I've done that before with writing, too, whether blogging here or doing NaNoWriMo. But this year, I'm going to try to get back on it, try to finish the month strong and maybe even keep going into the new year instead of calling it a day at the end of Holidailies. Here goes.