It’s probably an obvious statement at this point that I’ve let my blog fall by the wayside, somewhat.
7 posts this year, and 3 of those were about something that happened last year.
I was thinking about this earlier this evening, and it struck me that it’s got less to do with not having anything to write, but more of having fallen out of the habit of writing. It’s certainly not through lack of things to talk about – this year’s seen through a snowboarding trip, countless whisky tastings, me and a friend organising a whisky festival of our own, and plenty more besides. If you could see into the admin console in fact as of now you’d be looking at 41 blogposts in Draft status – things I’d started and gotten to a point with, but not finished: usually either through not being happy with the way something was worded, feeling like I’d gone on too long about something, or writing a load of stuff then realising I had lost sight of any sort of conclusion.
I really do enjoy writing. Well, did enjoy it, I guess.
One question which comes up more & more lately, particularly as my leisuretime focus tends more towards total occupation by whisky-related endeavour, is “Why don’t you start blogging about whisky?”.
The thing is – I don’t want to just write about whisky for its own sake. I wouldn’t consider myself a “nose”, and henceforth my tasting notes are typically short on detail and fairly uninspiring, and I don’t think the world needs ANOTHER blog by an uninspired wordcount-expander. I’d much sooner write about something new or interesting I’ve learned about whisky, or a thought I’ve had about it. But then that extends to the rest of the world about everything else, too. Hence the 41 draft posts (and the 30 or so I deleted in a recent cleanup which I finally reached peace with this idea of not being finished).
I know for a fact that I want my blogging to be less of the Travel Report stuff which I’ve written lots of (“And then we went here, and then we went there, and then we saw this, which was nice”), and more opinion and/or fact: but have to get into the habit of narrowing the focus of a piece enough that it doesn’t balloon out into 4000 words and leave me staring at another non-conclusion. Those wordy drafts are such a waste of time. I wrote a timely piece rounding up my favourite whisky auction sites following the news that eBay was to ban the trading of whisky on their platform, but so much time’s elapsed that the piece feels extemperaneous. Is that the word I mean? Meh.
Maybe the solution – as with so many things – is to just do it. Adopt the JFDI Methodology.
I guess we’ll see what happens, eh? I think I’d like to give it a try.
