A Crazy Little Thing Called Blog: Part One

After ten months of blogging, I seem to have lost my Blog Mojo-- if I ever really even had it to begin with. Have you ever had that feeling? I find it very unsettling. So here I sit, trying to figure out what's next for me in Blogland.

Google provided the following definition for the term "mojo". There are lots of definitions out there, but this one summed up my situation best.

Mojo:

1. Self-confidence, Self-assuredness. As in basis for belief in ones self in a situation.

2. Good luck fetish / charm to bolster confidence.
3. Ability to bounce back from a negative attitude

Yep, my Blog Mojo is definitely missing in action.

I've said before that I'm a total Type A personality and coming from a corporate work environment that was a plus. As a "plan your work and work your plan" kind of girl who's lived by strategic plans and goals and organizational charts for as long as I can remember, I'm floundering in Blogland with a complete lack of direction, focus or goal. In short, I can't just "go with the flow", it's not in my DNA.

So I'm wrestling with my next step in the World Wide Web and how to approach the reality that I spend A LOT of time blogging-- Perhaps even too much time. (Gasp!) Non-blogging friends keep asking the same questions-- What do you actually do and why do you send so much time doing "it"? Lately I've been asking myself the very same questions.

My short answer is that I don't have a "blogging plan" and yes, when you're a Type A and spend as much time at something as I do with blogging, a plan would be a good thing. The long answer is more complicated but ties into reinventing myself since my retirement and deciding if/when I will go back to a "traditional" job and what that means to my blogging/writing.

Throw in the fact that I'm computer/html/template/photo-challenged and spend far too much time trying to figure out the technology side of blogging and well, an entire day can be lost just trying to post an already written story.

So I'm reverting to my former "corporate life" and conducting a Focus Group of sorts-- I did those all the time in my past career and found them very informative. With your help, maybe we can all learn a few things-- At least I hope so.

I'm starting a feature named "A Crazy Little Thing Called Blog". It's a Question and Answer format that I hope will help me, and you, spend less time trying to figure out blogging and more time actually blogging.

I'll include a McLinky button at the bottom of each post so if you have an answer to a question that you've already blogged about, you can simply add your post and not have to rewrite it again. (And for the record, it only took me an hour to figure out how to use McLinky.)

We'll cover some the basic technical "blogging how-to" stuff and we'll try to answer the "why?", "now what?", "next step?" and "what's the point?" type of questions as well. I hope we can all learn a thing or two, or three, and ultimately I hope I find my Blog Mojo along the way.

No matter how long you've been blogging, I value your input. If you've been blogging for a month or ten years, please BRING IT ON! I'd love to hear from you and your experiences. And feel free to ask a question for a future post. I'll do my best to include it asap.

Let's start with a couple of general questions--

1) What's the one thing you wish someone had told you BEFORE you started blogging that would have made blogging easier for you?

2) What are your Blogging Pet Peeves?

Thanks a million for your help!

Welcome to The Fifty Factor - Joanna

Photo Credit: Jeff Metzger