I Used to be Good at Blogging

You know, I wanted to blog tonight and I thought to myself, "you could do a 2016 year in review!" similar to this one, but then I went through all my posts from 2016 - a whopping 20 of them, 21 if you count this one, and they're basically all catch-up posts. So a 2016 year in review would basically be like, all of the catch-up posts I've done this year mashed into one. And even I think that sounds boring.

But it got me to looking through my blog archives and I read a lot of my old posts, and it kind of makes me sad that I basically went the last two years with nothing but catch-up posts. That's so boring. Why didn't anyone tell me I got so boring???! Quite frankly, as I read through old posts I thought to myself, "how was I ever that creative??" And, can I ever be that creative again? I mean, this blog is going to turn six years old next year (six!), maybe my creativity has just run its course? Maybe my blog life was only meant for a good five year run and I've really just been scraping the bottom of the barrel with boring catch-up posts the last couple years? Whatever it is, it kind of makes me sad. Like, how did I ever come up with a "Lab Shark?"

Or convince people that I was good candidate for Vice President of the United States?

...actually that's a lie I probably convinced no one, but still. What made me think to write a small biographical blurb about the deer Nate killed, or his javelina? Or actually take the time to sit down and think about what Shania Twain songs taught me about relationships? 

I read those old posts and I'm just like, how did I think of these things?

There's a few things I'm thinking might be stymieing my creativity/blogging mojo.

1.) I haven't been engaged in politics the way I used to be (and boy did I used to be), so the current happenings of the day don't give me inspiration for post ideas since I'm not paying attention. I don't even really know when the State of the Union address is anymore, let alone be able to blog about it. I wrote about a filibuster once...I think the Democrats had a sit-in of sorts this year but I don't know what it was for or how long they sat in or even when that happened...so naturally I couldn't blog about it.

2.) I don't really read other blogs anymore so I don't get any inspiration from the blogosphere like, first world fits for example, or lists of things I couldn't think of on my own. If I don't read other blogs then I'm certainly not "linking up" with them either, like this one or this one, or this one. Are link-ups still a thing?

3.) I'm not in school anymore and oddly enough, when I have a lot of time I'm not good at time management. When I'm busy and have class to go to and homework to complete and research to do all while working full time, I'm better at managing my time - therefore, I blogged more when I was in school. Now I'm just a lazy POS who watches too much Bravo network.

4.) My blog is almost six years old (six!) so you can only celebrate birthdays and introduce your friends and your dogs and your family for like, the first two years of your blog before it starts to get repetitive 'cause everyone already knows everyone. Although meeting new friends is fun, and blogging used to do that for me. I miss that.

5.) Since I'm not blogging regularly, I don't think I'm really on the look-out for things to blog about. There's plenty of posts I've written that are essentially about nothing - just everyday observations or happenings that I managed to write a blog post about because it came to my attention. Maybe I just need to pay closer attention to life. Attention to detail = blog post ideas.

A goal for me in the new year is to definitely blog more; look at the difference in the amount of posts I used to write since I started this blog:

I wrote 122 posts in 2013....and 20 in 2016. I want to not just write more, but better...like I used to. Be more creative. Be more fun. Don't be so boring and write so many catch up posts. Thanks for putting up with my catch-up posts for the last two years basically.

Here's to a more creative 2017!