I’ve mentioned in the past that Blaugust, done daily for a month, is a good way to build a habit. At the very least, you get used to making time to do something. Once you’re used to it, it’s relatively easy to continue. To a point.
Something I hadn’t really thought about though is the little components that make it easier. Recognizing a good topic when you see one, for instance. While I managed to pull off Blaugust this time around, having taken such a long hiatus often made it feel like I was having to fight for it. It was significantly harder to find a daily writing topic than I recalled. One of my answers was to re-evaluate my topic criteria and pass on a few self imposed restrictions.
What I hadn’t realized is how habitual “topic mining” was before. Like a mental background process that watches for subjects that feel ripe for expansion. It’s not exactly a cure-all, but it helps keep the gears greased. What really surprises me is that it took a month and a half or so to kick in. A month ago I was just throwing every idea onto paper and hoping something would jump off the page. Also a perfectly valid tactic, but one that wasn’t working as well. There were a lot of days where I stared at the list thinking I didn’t really want to write about that right now..
A few bad habits have kicked in too. Automatically avoiding the same topic on consecutive days. Perhaps I should lean into those things a bit, but I’ve been putting at least one post between them so far. This has also led me to consider when a post should go live in relation to others that it’s connected with. I have also thought about how related the posts really need to be before that heuristic gets used. Just how related do they need to be before they get spread apart?
I don’t actually have a solid answer to that last one yet. At a glance, it seems related to the main topic. No consecutive posts about a specific game or topic, but it’s okay if the main topic is technically different. I sometimes go a step further though and simply neglect to mention the connection. The two recent Borderlands posts are obviously connected, but also led to my thoughts about fandoms nested between them, and the organizing of those posts and ideas spawned from bhagpuss’s comments led directly to this one. A very organic network of ideas that may not appear connected from the outside.
This post itself was brought about by choosing not to address some of those ideas immediately, and questioning if they should even be addressed separately. Also wondering which topic(s) they should or shouldn’t be distanced from. If I even care, at this point. No good rule goes unbroken and all that.
Y’all take care.
Unidentified Signal Source 