During the month of October, a lot of bloggers choose to challenge themselves and participate in the Blogtober challenge. What is Blogtober? Blogtober is a time when bloggers challenge themselves to write and publish blog posts every single day for the entire month of October. Posts are usually fall-themed, but you don’t have to create fall-themed posts and to be successful at the challenge you just have to publish blog posts seven days a week for the entire month. I like the idea of Blogtober and think it’s a good opportunity for new bloggers who don’t have a lot of posts because it can help get a lot of content on your blog in a short period of time, but I have never had any interest in it. Why am I not participating in the Blogtober challenge? In this post, I am going to talk about why I have no desire to participate in Blogtober.
Writing daily is not a challenge- A year ago, if you had asked me if I’d ever blog daily I would have told you that there was no way I could ever blog that much, and I don’t know how people do it, but it turns out it’s not as hard as I thought it was. Since starting my new blog, I have been blogging five to six days a week to build my blog and although that is not technically daily blogging, it’s close enough, and I know I could blog daily if I wanted to. I don’t challenge myself to do daily blogging challenges not because I think I couldn’t do it, but because it wouldn’t be a challenge for me since I basically already do that. If I were going to blog multiple times a day for an entire month, it would be a challenge for me, but blogging daily would not be because I know I can write blog posts quickly. I have been blogging consistently for seven years, and writing comes naturally to me, and it’s not hard to blog daily when you plan content ahead of time. If I had hundreds of posts on my blog, it might be more difficult to blog daily, but at the moment it’s pretty easy, and make it my goal to get at least five new posts up a week.
Sometimes pain prevents me from blogging- When you commit to Blogtober in order to be successful, you have to do it seven days a week and you cannot skip days, or else you fail. When you live with chronic pain, it can be difficult to commit to a daily blogging challenge because pain is unpredictable, and when your pain flares sometimes you need to take an unplanned rest day to recover. I blog most days of the week, but I blog in a way that feels good to me and don’t force myself to write when I am not well. Pain sometimes prevents me from being able to sit at my computer to blog and that is okay because you will create better content when you are flexible with your blogging schedule and listen to your body. People expect me to blog frequently, but I don’t have a set schedule and as long as I am not going months without blogging, I don’t have to stress if I need to skip a day. If I blogged every single day I might be able to complete the challenge but it also would be possible that my pain could flare and I made a commitment I was unable to keep. It can be hard to make commitments when you live with pain because pain is unpredictable, and we have to be realistic with our blogging abilities, and blogging daily is not always realistic.
Blogging daily can lead to burnout-I blog daily because I enjoy it and choose to blog that much but it’s different when make a choice to do something and force myself to do it to prove a point. Blogging should be fun but it’s not going to be as enjoyable when it’s forced, and often can lead to burn out. Many bloggers are successful at the Blogtober challenge but after the challenge is over, I have noticed that a lot of bloggers quit writing for a while, and I think it’s because blogging every single day requires more time and some people aren’t ready for that and burn themselves out. Blogger’s burnout is real and the only way you will prevent that from happening is by creating a realistic schedule for yourself because Blogtober is not worth it if it causes you to quit when it’s over!
Sometimes the quality of your post goes– When you blog more frequently, the one thing I think a lot of people don’t understand is that you don’t have as much time in between posts to come up with your next idea. I am able to create quality posts multiple times a week without compromising the quality of my content because I have a lot of writing experience, but not everyone is going to be able to write quality posts as quickly as me without compromising quality. The one thing that I have noticed with Blogtober posts is that people are not spending as much time writing them and posts are sloppy and a child could have written it better. I am not saying that every Blogtober post is bad but a lot of them are because people aren’t putting as much thought into their posts and are writing to get one out. Experienced bloggers often can write daily and still maintain a high standard for themselves because we have more experience than newbies but it’s not for everyone. There is nothing wrong with daily blogging but before you make that kind of commitment you might want to consider how long it takes you to write blog posts and if you are less experienced you might want to try once or twice a week to improve your blogging skills. I am a big believer in creating less quality posts than more sloppy ones because people are not going to want to read posts you put no effort in.
If you are a new blogger, Blogtober is a great challenge to participate in because when you write more often it strengthens your writing skills more quickly than someone who only blogs once a month. Blogtober is nothing I will ever feel the need to participate in but I have nothing against people who challenge themselves to write every day because it can help make blogging a habit. If you are going to do Blogtober it should be something you want to do, not something you felt you have to because when you enjoy the process, you are more likely to stick to it. Blogging is a skill that takes a lot of practice to get good at, and you don’t have to force yourself to do challenges you are not going to be able to complete because people will appreciate it more when you write quality posts less often. When I started blogging, I only blogged once or twice a week because that is all I could do but as my writing has improved over the years, I have been able to blog more often without getting burned out. Be realistic with your blogging schedule and write at times you are inspired because posts that show passion tend to do better. Are you participating in Blogtober? If you liked this post, please leave a comment below and share it with your friends.
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