Why I Didn’t Want to Start a Blog

I wanted to be a content creator for years, but I spent more time making excuses than brainstorming ideas for content. Here’s how I got over it.

I’ve toyed with the idea of publishing my thoughts online for years. At different times, I considered writing fiction, articles, and essays about a wide variety of topics. For the most part, these — or paltry snippets thereof — ended up in Evernote and were promptly forgotten. Having recently gone back to read some of them, I am eternally thankful that I left most of them “in the drafts,” so to speak.

Why?

“These are terrible.”

“You think you’re interesting enough to have a blog?”

“No one wants to hear what some knucklehead has to say about his life. Or writing. Or music. Or anything else, really.”

“You just don’t have the credentials, sweetie.”

These are the words I tortured myself with for years. I carried on with the other aspects of my life, secretly envious of the people that had found success in writing professionally. I pictured them as fearless conquerors of the published word — witty, worldly, and timely in ways that I could never be. I stopped writing altogether, except in my journal.

Then came the pandemic. I suddenly had no commute and no social activities with which to piddle away my free time and distract me from my unfulfilled desires. Like many others, I also had to contend with the specter of death — and with it, the specter of regret.

Some people move through the world as if divinely mandated to succeed. Others encounter failure, but never attribute it to themselves; these types then carry on in the same manner as the first group — with confidence that probably outstrips their capabilities. Still others never fail because they never start or commit to anything; crippled by (generally legitimate) fears and concerns, they live untested and their years pass partially or entirely unfulfilled.

It is mostly the fear of being in the last group that gets me to do anything at all. Therefore, I hope that I can be in the group of people that fail, learn from it, and die with few persistent regrets. If I commit and give my best effort, everything else is up to growth and chance. So there, I’m doing it — no confidence needed!

That said, what follows are the three things I did to get myself off the bench and onto the playing field.

Write Down Your Fears

Though motivated by the desire to avoid regrets, I still had a few legitimate reasons for not wanting to start a blog. I found that some of them were very similar to my rationale for avoiding content creation in general:

1. I’m afraid to waste resources on something that won’t go anywhere.

2. Is there anything unique or original about me? (Anyone who knows me says yes, unreservedly. I can be utilitarian to a fault, but that doesn’t a blog make — nor most other quirks in isolation.)

3. I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep creating content consistently.

4. I don’t know if my content will get better over time.

5. Am I interesting or knowledgeable enough to write a blog? (How dare I presume that people would be interested in what I think!)

6. I don’t know what to write about.

The great thing about writing down all of my doubts here — which I even neglected to do in my actual journal for quite some time — made them seem rather surmountable, if not altogether trivial. Number three is very easy to litmus test (can you come up with 30 blog post ideas in 5 minutes?). The other questions cannot be answered by theorizing and agonizing over the blog-to-be. If the blog is terrible, no one will read it and someone will likely go out of their way to tell me why it’s bad.

Surprisingly, dismay about someone hating me for what I may write here never made it onto the list, though it is a legitimate fear — particularly for political writers.

Though I’ve been avidly journaling for over a year, sometimes the value of penning my thoughts escapes me. It might help put your fears into perspective, too.

Think About the Possibilities

I think that a blog would be as good a place as any to start the kind of discourse I wish to have. It’s a bit better than simply writing in my journal — not that I think one is a substitute for the other. But once I’ve had the conversation with myself, I want to have the conversation with others. I see the blog as:

• a way to share ideas with others, since I am not always apt to do so offline.

• a potential starting point for enjoyable, thought-provoking dialogue.

• a possible vehicle for promoting my fiction.

These possibilities excite me enough to suppress my persistent fears and write. (They do not always excite me enough to stop procrastinating, however.)

Set A Goal

I would like, if possible, to monetize the blog. If I can make money from the blog, then that would confirm its value, from my perspective. People are generally not willing to pay for anything they don’t consider valuable, myself included. As I see it, the milestones for monetizing a blog (not particularly mine) follow:

1. Earn the first dollar.

2. Recoup the lesser cost of: (1) starting the blog or (2) keeping it running for 1 year.

3. Make a profit.

4. Earn enough to supplement existing income, if any.

5. Earn enough to replace existing income, if any.

I am currently only interested in milestones 1 and 2, which would satisfy my desire to prove that the blog is valuable — if only as a source of entertainment. Having that goal to fixate upon helps me crowd out the other, less-productive thoughts.

If you want to start a blog or do anything else that’s important to you, don’t let fear get in the way — nothing turns one’s comfort zone sour more quickly than fear and regret. Making the decision (and the financial investment) to start a blog has already been an informative experience and I hope to find myself enriched in other ways by the blogging experience.