The Mysterious Case of the Abandoned Blog

Posted on by RoseIW

So far, I believe most of my posts, of which there are not many, have started with an apology.

This one is no different.

Sorry for being such a terrible excuse for a blogger!

The trouble is that every time I put pen to paper – or, more accurately, fingers to keyboard – I find myself worrying: worrying about what to write, worrying about whether it will be interesting, worrying what people will think or say, worrying about whether or not people will support it.

It doesn’t matter how inspired I feel in any given moment, and nor does it matter how much I have to say, I cannot shake the anxiety that surrounds blog writing and I inevitably let my blogging slip away and bury my head in the sand again a mere post or two after surfacing.

I’m going to try not to let that happen this time. Really try. Because I adore story-telling, in all its forms.

Lately, too, I’ve been feeling guilt that I’m sure (or at least hope) is entirely imagined, because I worry that a small number of people in my life will either say my time could be better spent elsewhere, or they will assume this means I will have less time to give to them, or they will deliberately dampen my desire to get myself ‘out there’ simply because it is not something they would, could or want to do…or hear about.

“Don’t listen to them!” I hear you cry. “Your friends should know you better than that!”

And they do. I have some wonderful friends and family in my life, who support me with everything I do, and never doubt that I’ll still be there for them, still do everything we do together with as much energy and excitement as always.

But here’s the thing about me: I listen to everyone, even when I shouldn’t. The voices of the people who don’t know me all that well at all get into my head, and they add layer upon layer to my already considerable self-doubt until I rely solely on the validation and approval of others, the positive reinforcement. These days, being met with negativity or passive aggression makes me panic, faster than anything else.

Anyone who truly knows me knows that I throw myself whole-heartedly into everything I do. I give my all, try my best, and try to see the good in people wherever I possibly can. I will give my energy to you in spades, if you want it, and my positive nature, my drive to succeed. I won’t commit to something unless I want to do it, a fact I always thought was fairly well-known. Still sometimes people question, guilt, wear me down, chip away at my self-worth; and I end up leaving my own hopes and dreams abandoned at the sidelines because I’m afraid that if I pursue them I will be doused in negativity from someone, somewhere. Because I figure they must be right and I must be wrong. And finding the strength to withstand that can be so hard.

I have enough time and passion to go around all the people I know and all the things that I do. I know it, as surely as I know my own name. And those who truly know me also know it…and I love them for it.

Throw in the fact that I have no shows to perform in at present – looking at you, Covid-19! – and it really does seem like the perfect time to get started. Again. And hopefully, this time, I won’t end up writing another blog post in two years’ time apologising for my lack of blog posts!

So we’ll see how we go, and then maybe a few of my other goals will follow suit…

I’ve said that before, I know, and I’ve not kept to it – why should this time be any different?

The truth is, I don’t know that it will be…but at least Approach With Caffeine has come back onto my radar, and I’ve taken the first baby step back towards giving it a shot.

Wish me luck!

Radio Silence

Posted on by RoseIW

Sorry for the radio silence!

This blogging lark is harder than I thought – I have so much I want to blog about, but finding a) the time and b) the guts to write what I’m thinking and press ‘publish’ is proving to be harder than I thought.

For someone who is fairly extroverted, this came as quite a shock.

After all, I’ve never had problems making myself heard! I speak up in meetings, I’ll prance and dance about on a stage from dawn ’til dusk and at parties you’ll find me hogging the karaoke microphone or participating in a dance-off in the centre of the floor.

I was a writer for a living for two years before I fell into my current job; I’ve written enough programme bios to make me sick of the sight of my own name; I run more theatrical social media accounts than I have fingers to type.

Why, then, do I find blogging so bloody difficult?

There’s a certain amount of pressure, I suppose, when you’re writing a blog, to be witty or funny or to write a post that will go viral. To blog every day lest you lose readers, to dedicate all your time to social media lest you lose followers, to change the world, to make a difference, to make millions.

There’s the worry of being shot down, that the words you’ve spent hours choosing and ordering simply won’t be good enough for the legions of strangers reading them.

There’s the need to be liked, the need to have your voice heard, the need to put your opinion somewhere in the hope of finding like-minded souls to whom your ideas will really mean something.

For me, though, none of that matters. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it would be nice to make millions or change the world, but for now I have a much smaller, much humbler goal in mind:

Being myself.

Sounds a little silly, doesn’t it?

And perhaps it is. But I’ve spent so much time trying to work out what the ‘point’ of this blog should be that I lost sight of why I started doing it in the first place: to have a platform for myself, be it for reviews, embarrassing stage stories, questions, opinions or otherwise.

Perhaps a clearer focus will come with time, but for now I’m just happy ambling through the world of blogging while I find my feet.

Who knows? Maybe, slowly, I’ll even get to grips with the fact that I don’t always have to be the all-singing, all-dancing personality I’m best-known for to get people to listen. Or read.

So here I am, ready to blog, with a new enthusiasm and the realisation that not every post has to be a life-affirming masterpiece or a tale of comic genius.

I hope you’ll stick with me – I have a feeling it’s going to be quite a ride!