Motivation, an idea married to action. Intent alone does not motivate for intent is nothing more than a spark without fuel. Intent is passive. Intent waits to be rescued from the prison of imagination. Motivation grabs imagination by the ears and pulls it into reality kicking and screaming.
The idea to create a web site was not something I jumped to one evening out of the blue. I’d played with the idea for some time without really committing myself to action. I just never really could settle on an idea which ultimately appealed to my need to balance creativity with geeky experimentation.
However, I was finally called into action when my wife caught the blogging bug. All at once, I was designer, administrator, technical support, and even sometimes contributor. It is comfortable being the stage hand to such a determined writer. It is also very challenging.
When I stumbled on the name, The Reluctant Blogger, I new I had to do something with it. The title seemed to appropriately capture my need to get on line despite my apprehension, and fear of commitment. But, as I began to write I found it increasingly difficult to keep up with the ideal pace I’d set for myself.
I realize now I set my expectations too high. After all, I tried to emulate a woman who committed to writing a post every day. I also tried to keep up with the wrong kinds of sites… blogs where multiple posts a day are not just common, but expected. I wanted to be like these people, but the more I fell behind in my own posts, the less I was motivated to write.
Then I realized something… Most of the people I was trying to emulate are actually multiple people contributing to one site, or worse are multiple people who don’t really do anything more than collate information from other sites.
But now, my attitude is changed. I’m feeling less guilty about regular posts and I’m feeling a little more creative. I’m not going to promise posts every day – I wouldn’t be true to my name if I actually did write regularly, but I’m going try something different. Not another news gathering site or photo blog, but something different in a familiar way.
I’m going to start with some redecorating, so please excuse the dust for the next few weeks. I’ll try to post during construction and will try to manage the changes during that time so everything isn’t such a shock when I’m done. In the mean time, it’s time to put the gloves on. I’ve got to go pull some ideas up out of the dark by their ears…