Have you ever come up against the proverbial brick wall? When you’ve lived as long as I have, I’m sure you will.
Let me tell you about my particular brick wall. Yes, confession time.
Despite the fact I’m a pretty prolific blogger and I’ve been keeping a writing support website going, I’m struggling with my blogging at many levels. I keep wondering if I’ve bitten off more than I can chew with putting so many posts out across three blogs. Writing the posts are hard enough, sharing them, responding to comments and more importantly visiting and commenting on the posts of other bloggers….I just can’t seem to keep up.
Even more importantly, I don’t want to be putting out content that’s not really coming from the deepest part of me. And I’m afraid that’s what I’ve been doing of late.
Yes, I’ve had a couple of posts on BlogHer, like these and they’re worth celebrating.
The Written Word and the Spoken Word
and
How to Get More Mileage Out of Old Posts
But for me part of being a writer is trying to find my way to be ME. But as always, that’s not an easy task. I try to explore more of myself in my writing, but sometimes end up sounding and feeling like someone else. And blogging for me is all about interactions.
I’m trying. I really am. Please bear with me.
“I’m here to be me, which is taking a great deal longer than I had hoped.” ― Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith
What is your ‘brick wall’ at present?
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Mine is that I don’t feel I’m going anywhere with my writing. I want to accomplish some things atleast but I’m really going no where. So, that’s my brick wall, Corinne
I understand, Naba. But you’re doing very well right now – a new baby and a super new blog as well!
For all you do Corinne I think you’re juggling it QUITE well. My brick wall at the moment is too many irons in the fire and stressing – yes I know it’s still Aug – over the holidays and planning out mailing dates, etc., etc. Silly, isn’t it? I think I just need to breathe.. 🙂 – You, my friend are doing a phenomenal job and we will all be here reading on and supporting your efforts and endeavors. 🙂
Thanks, Karen. I hope the deep breaths are working. It’s taken me a whole week to get back to responding to your sweet comment. Love ya!
Corinne, you post speaks to me because I’m struggling really hard to balance my personal commitments and writing has taken a backseat. There’s so much juggling between jobs where I’m expected and I want to make a difference by being closely involved and this is really causing me distress because I thought I could always find my way through all of these to get on with writing. Believe me, even after all this when I actually take the time out to sit down quietly and try to write it seems I’m not going anywhere. I feel stuck and very very frustrated. My brick wall is really really stiff. I can understand how much you have on your plate and you’re doing amazingly well trying to keep things going. I always think of you when I find the going tough. You’ve always inspired me, Corinne. Hope you find your way out of this very very soon. Hugs <3
It is important to be true to oneself. I do tend to keep a little piece private, too. Best wishes and happy blogging!
I think just looking at how much you are doing would be a great wall for me. My wall is the fact that I know what I write about is pretty specific to a certain population of parents (parents of kids with special needs), many of who already know where to find what I write so trying to make the information “real” with examples of what we have done for our daughter is tough. Let’s get some more bloggers and push these walls down. 9-)
It’s tough to find a balance when everything’s so demanding. The Blogosphere is very insistent on Being Kept Up With, and it’s easy to drop off a cliff. I’ve done that, kind of intentionally, and now I’m struggling to find a reason to return. I am my own biggest brick wall.
You know what, I was admiring few days back how you are managing so many tasks… writing in various platforms, being an admin of FB group, collecting posts from other bloggers… And you are doing awesome. In my case just the mention of deadline gives me serious panic attack 🙂
I too sometimes hit the brick wall while finding sometime meaningful to write on. I am sure you will get over this phase soon. I guess it’s just a part of blogging, some days are super creative, others a drudgery.
I feel you are being too hard on yourself. While I understand that you have your plate full, I know that you giving your best everywhere. It’s okay sometimes to not be able to deliver. Can you find a schedule for writing that doesn’t put you under a lot a stress? Maybe one on each blog every week? Something that works with you current engagements.
My brick wall is that I am writing but I don’t know if this is the right progress. Maybe I am basing the value on stats but what else is the measure?
I think you’re doing amazing things (and am off to read your other posts now) but I understand about the blogging brick walls for sure. For me, I was so passionate about finding a tribe of parents who had kids like mine – who didn’t really fit in anywhere, not in the typical world and not being autistic… but now that he’s seven and going into second grade, it doesn’t feel as fair writing about him and often, I have no idea what to do about that. Gah. Please keep blogging.
I can’t remember how to sign in at BlogHer so figured I’d ask this here. When you republish old blog posts, do you just change the date or do you actually publish again so you technically have two posts that are almost identical?
Thanks Corinne for sharing this post. I don’t know but may be this is a very common situation of every blogger at one point of time. Your post break the chain of my silent blog and I am very happy about that.
Oh my goodness Corinne, you do SO much and still have time to comment on other blogs! My brick wall? Brain overload for sure. At school I was labelled by teachers as a ‘scatter-brain’, I think the more helpful and polite term now for people like me is ‘holistic thinker’. Like so many other creative people working in writing, photography, painting etc, my brain fires off about a million ideas a minute and sometimes it immobilises me worse than not having any ideas at all. I have to be very disciplined and have a system of writing my ideas down to relieve my brain of having to hold onto them. So I may have to stop what I am doing many times in a day to write stuff down. And then I pull about six things from that list on a daily basis, prioritising the MUST do things first of course. The ideas/tasks list is massive and I doubt I have enough years left to complete it! I totally get where you are coming from Corinne.
Corinne, you do very well after having so much in your lap. For me, I have many ideas in my mind but don’t know how to make them real. Sometimes, lack of funds, lack of time and other times, I do not know where to start. Right now, I am not loading myself and I am loving it. I am taking 1 thing in hand at a time- It does not break the balance and keep me sane.
Thanks, Upasna. The idea of taking on one thing at a time makes so much sense. Thanks for sharing
You are an achiever and for an achiever, there is no limit…..There will always be walls and hurdles and what not as long as one keeps trying…..
You’ve always amazed me Corinne, and you still do! I find it hard enough to keep up with one small blog having very unsteady and unreliable stats. You are an inspiration to many, but that again might put so much pressure on you. We’re a community, a family – always there to provide support the way you do to all. The brick wall is only of the mind that you tackle every single time. And you’ll definitely continue doing the same.
Keep going Corinnne. You’re doing a great job with everything. What you describe is what every blogger goes through behind the scenes. Until you blog, no one realizes how much work blogging is! But for most of us (and I suspect you too) we couldn’t live without it.
I see you all over the place writing all the things and think “I want to be like Corinne when I get my act together!” My brick wall is stress and anxiety. I’m juggling a few things right now – blogging, freelance writing, building my Etsy/handmade business – and they’re all inter-related so I can’t just put one down. I’m in the building stage so I know it is going to be a lot of work, but at the end of the day, after kiddo goes to bed, I’m fried. I know I *should* stay up and work on things, but I can’t get my body to work with me. This too shall pass, but it is frustrating because when I put the work in I do see growth. =)
If all we had to do was blog it would be easy peasy. But the biggest part of bloggin is networking and I want to be as genuine about that as I am about my writing. You have taken on a big task. I knew you had two blogs but not three! Which is your favorite, your baby?
I LOVE this brick wall message, Corrine.
I think mine’s Fly Anyway, as that’s about my latest post and latest musing. 🙂
Have a wonderful week!