Annual Report

A year ago to the week, I wrote about where I had been, what I’d been up to, and why my blogging had lost its consistency, committing to find it again through publishing a post weekly on Wednesdays.

Since that final week of January 2022, I’ve only missed 10 of the total 52 weeks. That’s a smidge less than 20% (19.2% for all you nerds out there) which I think is excellent news.

While I’m not going to quantify consistency, especially my own, by any means, I think knowing I wrote a little over 80% per week for the full year is an astounding achievement when before I was writing with no schedule at all. It would be sometimes one post per month, but never the same day of the month. Worse, sometimes it was several posts in one month and then nothing for the following months.

Writing on a schedule, even if there were some weeks I missed, and keeping to it roughly 80% of the time is incredible and I’m genuinely proud of myself.

I hope you, too, my dear reader feel the benefits of this new schedule I’ve adopted.

Looking back, I recall how I conflated the ideal of consistency with habituality. You may not be as shocked as myself to learn I noticed these past few weeks how at odds I feel with myself if there is a week I neglect to publish any blog post at all, no matter how poor I think it.

Does this mean my writing has grown into more than a chore, but it now lives as a habit within me? The itch no longer driving me mad from negligence, a craving I cannot satiate, but a healthy appetite I have indulged and disciplined with routine?

G-d, I hope so.

For writing to become such a habit, to know that I can maintain it—I am one step closer to my ideal.

How then can I achieve more this year? How can I do more to pursue my desires?

Let me first say that I will not be attempted to publish more posts per week. That, I think, is the wrong answer. I ludicrous one. Why would I give myself the stupid goal of publishing two posts per week when there were ten weeks I couldn’t even publish one?

No, the obvious first step would be to decrease the amount of weeks I miss from 10 to maybe 5, but again this does not answer how. I think the answer, the obtainable goal I can set, is much more simple: batch writing.

When I attended a blog workshop last year at the Story Center, as part of my curriculum to graduate last December, the instructor, Jen Mann, brought up an excellent point of how she achieved her own success, and it was batch writing. What is batch writing, you ask? Sitting down one day a month, and drafting as many blog posts as one can for that day, then scheduling them out according to whatever calendar one keeps.

That is something I wanted to achieve last year, but it eluded me. Probably because I was biting off more than I could chew at the time. Baby steps, I often reminded myself. There were some weeks I could write out maybe three blog posts in one sitting, but those times were rare rather than frequent, and usually consisted of book reviews.

This year, I hope to make it the frequency rather than the rarity. I can’t wait to see what comes next.

What else do you want to see this year? Is there something I have missed? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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