On Blogging, Tribes, and Time

Or: With a tribe behind her, eight lenses to create, and three blogs to write, will she now make time for what she wants to do (which is to write)?


I've just been accepted into RocketMoms, a group of awesome women who make excellent Squidoo lenses, and who help each other to make even better ones. Hey-- I'm suddenly one of the smartest women on the web! Going through RocketMoms over the next eight weeks, my task will be to create at least eight new Squidoo lenses. I'm thrilled about htat, but the thing is, I also just became the blogmaster for my company's blog last month, and I just started a new blog with my kids!

Anyone who's reading this blog (all one or two of you-- hi Mom!) will know how I struggle to find time to write for it. It's not lack of ideas, or ambition, just a lack of time and energy. In April I started Darren Rowse's 31 Days to Build a Better Blog (31DBBB), and I didn't even make it past day five. And that was something I really and truly wanted to do. (Thank God he's got a workbook out now, and I can go through it at my own pace-- excellent!)

The idea behind RocketMoms is that it's a very involved support and learning group of lensmasters-- a real tribe, as Seth would say. The 31DBBB in April was a kind of a tribe, too-- and it certainly had a great leader in Darren-- but RocketMoms is smaller, more intimate, and I already know many of the lensmasters in the group. I'm hoping that will make me be more accountable, and motivate me to make the time to write.

Among several other books, I'm reading one right now that my mom bought for me: The Woman's Book of Courage: Meditations for Empowerment & Peace of Mind. It's not normally my kind of book, but it does give me things to think about. It talks, for instance, about your life as if it were a bank account, and how you have to make as many or more deposits (doing things for yourself) as you do withdrawals (doing things for others). Well, blogging and writing and Squidooing count as doing things for me, so I just need to make it a priority to set aside time for them.

But truth be told, maybe it's not only lack of time, but lack of confidence in the work I'm turning out. I guess if you're going to sit around waiting to hatch a post that is pithy, profound and perfect, your blog will look a lot like mine-- pretty empty. And I'm also guessing that the way to get closer to consistent pithiness, profundity, and perfection in posts is to practice! (Good Godfrey, it must be National Alliteration Day!)

I read a blurb on Lauren Elkin's blog 'Maitresse' last week about Virginia Woolf's work ethic, and the amount of writing the woman cranked out every year. Lauren's response to that will have to be my new mantra:
"Well, back to work then!"