varn.dev

When I - somewhat impulsively - decided to attempt Blaugust, thanks to an idea from the always amazing Aubrey (gotta love alliteration), I wasn’t really sure how much I would actually do. I’ve had this blog for ~3 years now and had written approximately 8 times before that. How on Earth would I be able to post once a day for a month?

I actually fell into tech originally as a way to pay the bills, but went to school for writing, graduating from Florida State (Go Noles!) with a degree in English. I always loved writing, as a kid and throughout school, and though I knew I wasn’t going to be a writer professionally, it was great to flex that muscle and get better at it. And besides, back in the early 2000s, you just needed the degree to get a job, not always what the degree was IN.

Around that same time, I actually had a personal site where I WOULD blog once a day. This was before blogging was really a thing, but I found it fun to just post random stuff on my mind every single day, because of course who wasn’t asking for the opinions and thoughts of a straight white man? But it also became a drain - I would feel obligated to write, even if I had nothing to say, and after about 2 years of this, I just got fully burned out on writing in general.

I’ve dabbled here and there, writing some stuff that I’ve never shared/published and attempted a blog occasionally, but just never stuck with it. But I think that, now 19 days into August, I think that I’ve finally settled back into a groove and become less burned out on writing. It feels more natural, more normal, and most importantly enjoyable. The topics are all over the place, the posts are varying lengths but it still feels great to just write some again.

I don’t know if I will actually post every day this month, but the difference now is that I don’t feel pressure to do so. If I do it every day, great. But if I miss a day - and based on the traffic stats here I don’t think anyone would even notice - I’ve found ease in getting back into sharing what I have to say in a way that feels way less high stakes and less in my head. I hope I’ll be able to continue to post more regularly after August ends, probably not daily but “more”. That’s a win to me.