My header is basic and unillustrated. I have not got a series of posts all ready to publish. I don't really know how to put in photos. I only seem to have a germ of an idea of what I want to do with this blog.
So why is this blog already up and publishing? Aren't newbie bloggers told to hit the ground running with all the preparation done first? Pretty colours, drawings and photos at the ready? A few posts already in the pipeline, just waiting for the "publish" button to be pressed? Well they say that rules are meant to be broken, and I - and this blog - are living proof of that.
The truth is, I am a perfectionist. And just to give you the heads up, that is NOT a good thing. I have been thinking about writing this blog for probably 18 months. I've signed up for and regularly read a ton of blogs that cover all the sort of topics I am interested in. I download or copy-and-save mountains of .doc pages of information on blogging. I dream of the time when I have a blog being published and write amazing posts in my head.
So why haven't I been blogging for oh, say the last 12 months? (Giving myself a generous 6 months of planning). Because I'm not quite ready yet. I have to wait for the perfect first blog subject, or the perfect day when I have plenty of time to write about said perfect subject, or .... ,or ..., ... well you get the idea. I spend so much time thinking about blogging, and waiting for the perfect time, that I haven't been putting the time into all the other things I should be doing. So the end of year comes, and I start thinking about 2014. Through tears, I tell Mick (my husband) that I have been wanting to start a blog for so long now, but it's obviously just not going to happen and anyway, I just haven't got time to do it - that I'm going to have to give up on the whole idea.
Well I have never seen him move so fast. Within a couple of hours he had come up with a name (I had 3 or 4 options, but none of them were quite right. He came up with it after about 10 seconds of thinking about it, and I thought it was just what I wanted), logged into my Google account (I had that at least set up) and started to blog. He wrote some silly nonsense, and then hit 'publish'.
Aaargh! I have a blog! I am terrified!
Of course, once it was public (and I had a few hits from America within minutes - I don't know how) I was spurred into action. Pride in my blog dictated that I had to go through and edit it. Mick, who is much more computer-savvy than me, continued to check up on how to put up graphics and photos while I got a lot of far more concrete ideas on how I want the blog to look and feel.
And the ideas start flowing. And the words start to be written. And I have a blog! Woo-Hoo.
So what have I learnt from this exercise (apart from the fact that Mick is my Action Man hero!).
- Perfect. Safe. Thinking. Dreaming. These are not good words if they stop you from taking action.
- Sometimes being launched into the scary unknown - against your better judgement - works really well in sparking intensive and much needed activity.
- I know I usually need a deadline to spur me into action, so for times like these when there is no deadline, no time I had to get the blog on-line, I need to have an alternative plan to 'trick' me into action. I must build these alternatives into my future projects so I don't get so bogged down in perfectionism.
- Sometimes having a hero at the ready can be a really good alternative :)
Til next time,
Lesley
No comments:
Post a Comment