The Occasional Solipsist

Been reading a lot lately about how some bloggers feel that for various and sundry reasons, they are having a hard time finding their own voice, and are experiencing 'burnout'.

Came across a great list of ways to see if you are experiencing this burnout. Read the whole entry here. It reads more like a list of how to identify self-censorship.

1. when your internal dialogue gets hijacked by your concerns about what your readers will think.

2. when you are afraid to write down what you are truly thinking about at that moment.

3. when you believe the lie that some people just aren't capable of good writing.

4. when you believe the lie that there is a certain way that you "should" write anything.

5. when you get more involved in punctuation, spelling, or aestetics than saying what you want to say.

6. when you get caught up in traffic, hits, popularity, readers, and/or fame.

7. when you believe the lie that what you think doesn't matter.

8. when you believe the lie that what you're about to say has been said before and/or written down better.

9. when you forget that most ideas can be expressed in less than 15 minutes.

10. when you dont set aside a little bit of time each day to update your blog.

I bring this up not because I feel like I am losing my own voice, or am feeling at all burned out. Indeed, I feel like I am finding my voice more and more, though I am still too god damn picky about my prose to ever thinking about finishing the book I started a few years ago. Too bad too. The pope was in it and everything.

I have always had this thing that prior to starting my blog used to hold me back in my writing. It mostly involved my getting too caught up in how to say what I want, and not paying enough attention to what I am saying. But blogging has been really good in helping me with that.

So I bring this up more to provide for fellow writers a checklist of things to watch out for, because expressing oneself through writing should be a fun thing.

As for me, I'm just getting started.