It’s Untenable

So I’m not sure it was clear considering the backdating of the previous post, but I tried to write an entry about the first six months of Callie’s life and it ended up taking me two months to finish.

To avoid having people assume I was really that bad at math I set the date for the post to February 4th, which was when I first started writing, but I guess that throws off some various mechanisms that work to distribute my postings to places like Facebook and Twitter. It’s probably just as well; the final result in my opinion is not indicative of two months of work.

It’s actually gotten me thinking about my posting habits quite a bit because even before the intended-for-February post my previous effort was October or something. But then again I look at my Drafts folder and see entries that were begun on September 29, December 8, January 7 and so on, none of which were ever completed.

Long time readers will recognize this cycle: I write a couple of long-form articles that accidentally resemble half-decent writing and one person says, “You’re a good writer!” Then I start thinking I have an audience and I have to meet expectations which results in me thinking that nothing I write is worth the minimal effort it takes to parse my fourth-grade-level prose.

I’m also coming to realize the impact that short-form self expression has on my desire to write lengthy blog entries. A quick scan of the archives will confirm that few humans—on this planet or off—are as capable of taking a simple thought and expounding on it to the point where written words are actually capable of rending brain cells into a fine paste not unlike single-grain oatmeal. Which is why the by-design restrictions of Twitter and Facebook statuses are nice because they demand that I be pithy. But since I’m speaking my mind and getting to the point, the temptation to take that small passing thought and extrapolating from it reams of text is lessened. I’m sure you’re in agreement with me that this is by and large a good thing.

So my choices are either continue to nitpick longer pieces until I finally squeeze out something that meets some invisible criteria or I can try to get back to what ironSoap was supposed to be in the first place which is an online journal detailing some of the semi-daily events and activities to keep people who either care or have a heavy masochistic streak enlightened.

I think I need to simply learn how to lighten up about it and get to the point a little more. I avoid making promises about updating schedules because they are, simply by virtue of being made, destined to become bald faced lies. However, journal or no, the underlying intent of ironSoap was to encourage me to write regularly and that ain’t happening. So something needs to change. I know the bar for “quality” around here is fairly low but don’t be surprised if I sacrifice a little of it in the coming weeks in favor of quantity as part of an effort to avoid multi-month droughts.

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