Blogging is hard

I wrote my first blog post in March of 2006. That means I’ve been doing this, or not doing this as the case may be, for close to 10 years. I’m already making plans to mark that anniversary with a little celebration, but for now just wanted to write a bit about blogging.

Blogging is hard, for me, for so many reasons. It’s hard to find the time. It’s hard to establish a routine. It’s hard to not get lost in all the seemingly important, yet ultimately inconsequential, junk I know about publishing content online.

What photo should I use as the featured image? What keywords should I target? Is there an affiliate link I can/shold include? Is there a good time of day to publish it? Should I look at my historical analytics and let that drive what I write about and when I publish it? It’s paralyzing.

And then…  Wait? What was I going to write about?

I know people…  I know lots of people actually that blog daily. One of the most prolific being my friend Chris Lema.  Where does he find the time?!? The inspiration and dedication?  Ok, if you know Chris you know the inspiration and dedication is never a problem, the time is still a mystery.

He’s not the only one I find inspiration in.  Mindy and Ligeia surprise me every week or two on Bounding Over Our Steps with writing I really enjoy reading. Kelsey and Peter on TravelinFools whom I know from Maui and _just_ moved to Bali are fun to read as well.  And of course my former business partner John Hawkins still turns out infrequent but great writing on VegasGeek. The list could go on, but then that’s another post topic I don’t want to waste.

So here’s my goal.  I want to publish a post at least once per week. I use the word publish because while I don’t write a lot, a lot of what I write remains 90% complete and goes unpublished.  I literally have 4 draft posts sitting in WordPress right now waiting for grammar editing, or a photo, or…   enough of that.  Publishing weekly or better is the goal.  So establish the routine now, and then in 2016 do it with ease.  Some of that will be here, some of that will be on the wedding site turned shared blog Elena and I are building on JonAndElenasJourney.com.

Help me, inspire me hold me to it.  Tell me what you want me to write about.  Tell me it’s too long, too short, has typoos, whatever…  help me get on track to blog the next 10 years.