Blockage.

After the past weekend, I thought that writing my 99 random thoughts would bring out some creativity, sort of like a brain warm-up. It actually made me realize my thoughts were all over the place and I have an extremely hard time focusing on a single task. One thought leads to another, to another, to another….. That is probably why I need the radio on when I write, or work, in general. Something needs to distract me from all these thoughts.

A lot of bloggers will tell you that they’ve experienced (or know someone who has experienced) a 3 month blogger crash. Basically you blog too much, too fast, and eventually crash and burn. Dunno what to write. Don’t wanna write. Have no more ideas left. Rather go out and enjoy life than sit in front of the computer. The topic you used to love writing about, you hate now. Have nightmares about blogging. Have nightmares about hate mail. Have nightmares about trying to keep your readers. Freak out that your subscriber numbers fluctuate so much, and wonder what you did to cause it to fluctuate. And so on.

I used to enjoy writing at 6am every morning. And getting it published before the majority of people go out the door for work. I used to have between 5-10 posts all ready for emergencies in case I didn’t post that day. Now, I’m scrambling to post something, anything, and I start posting later and later in the day, and I would hold onto the posts, wondering if I needed to change something, if I was too wordy, if the recipe I was writing about was too ethnic, too Americanized, too trashy, too poorly written. I’d fix things here and there, not wanting to post it. I got more self-conscious. I couldn’t let my posts go.

It’s gotten to the point where I have all my food pics still stuck inside my sandisk, inside my camera, not even wanting to upload them onto my computer, for fear that they just aren’t good enough to post. I can’t even look at my photos anymore.

A few things happened the past week that led up to this writer’s ‘block’, ‘crash’, or ‘burnout’, combined with the inevitable, slow 3 month climb to this plateau I’ve arrived at. 1 – the majority of my photos I’ve been sending to those evil Microstock agencies have been getting rejected, rejected, rejected, for the same generic reasons over and over and over. Computer algorithms are evil. Most agencies reject for the fact that they are just overloaded with an excess of photo submissions, and their computers need to spew out a generic reason for rejecting you. Nothing else I’ve experienced says otherwise. I’ll shoot 20 photos to the agency, and no less than 5 minutes go by, do I get 19 rejection e-mails stating a generic reason for rejection. I’ll take a break, and shoot another 20 photos to them 2 hours later. Within 5 minutes, I’ll get 17 e-mails giving me a totally different reason for rejection, but the same different reason 17 times!

What are the odds?

Of course, I’ll submit those same photos to a totally different agency, and they’ll get accepted, and get sold. And vice versa. I mean, haven’t you ever submitted to Tastespotting, or Foodgawker, and been given reasons for rejections at one or both of those websites? It’s frustrating, isn’t it? Imagine getting rejected over 90% of the time while trying to make a living.

I don’t expect pity, I really hope that didn’t sound like my intention. But this was the epitome of frustration. SO, SO FRUSTRATING. I haven’t used my camera in a week.

My second reason for this blockage -  It’s actually a combination of incidents that take place on this blog. One was having to delete a confrontation on one of my older posts, called ‘Friends’. A friend responded to my post on my comments, and I chose not to respond. The friend pressed further for my response, in which I completely flipped out. It went back and forth, but basically the friend didn’t understand what my post was about, and chose to retaliate defensively on my comments. I felt like I failed in my writing. I couldn’t get my point across clearly for this friend to understand that my post was about a traumatic situation I experienced, and how I felt within that point in time. There was no finger-pointing, no bashing. So if you think the post is about you, and you feel defensive, or guilty, then it probably IS about you. Believe me, I don’t think I’m better than most people. I’ve had my @$$hole moments too. And when you write about something you experienced, and try to describe it by expressing your emotions, you get reactions from people who act defensively. While the whole point of the writing was to relate to other people – for sympathy, empathy, compassion. Not to push people farther away. And in that instance, I failed as a writer. Or did I? Isn’t it the reader’s responsibility to read with an open mind? And not with a judgmental one?

I made the tough choice to delete the comments. I’ve never deleted readers’ comments, well, except spam. But like David Lebovitz says in his Q&A, ‘This is not a democracy; this is my dictatorship’. I will delete things that don’t contribute anything substantially meaningful to this blog. I don’t intend this blog to be a platform for arguing with my friends. And if they haven’t noticed, 98% of my posts are about food, while they scrolled through dozens and dozens of posts to find something they can argue with me about. That’s petty.

Along with that incident, I agonize over writing something that people might pick apart and spin, in their response to me. How do I deal with people who twist my words into something completely political? I mean, I can argue, boy can I argue something to death. But I choose not to, especially here. And I guess that’s something that goes along with blogging. You deal with it as it comes.

Another major thing that probably decreases motivation in bloggers are Alexa rankings. They are the devil. Don’t listen to anyone telling you that Alexa is what you should base success on. Alexa is a ranking system for the entire internet. Or, internet which only uses a specific browser (Internet Explorer, I think). Once Alexa collects 3 months of information for your blog, your rank increase seems to slow down, or even plateau. Is it a coincidence that bloggers crash and burn at this exact time? Maybe all this thinking about ranks makes us apathetic about our blogs. Just a guess.

Time and again, I’ve said how you should blog about something you love and enjoy, as your goal should not be about gaining more hits. And it’s especially difficult when people tell you to blog more about _______(<— said ethnicity) foods to gain more _______(<— said ethnicity) readers, or to cook something trendy, or to cook something shocking and gross, etc. Do you really want to limit yourself to a specific genre in order create a niche? Or do you want to form a niche from blogging about your general interests? Because, your general interests are probably very unique in relation to the majority of your readers. And in that way, you will form a very unique niche that is based on your interests and your writing, rather than shock value or appealing to the masses.

Now, I believe the majority of readers come to my site because of the photography. And that’s a lot of pressure to maintain those high standards. But I know a few of you appreciate my sporadic rants, my ramblings, random thoughts, or even this post. In fact, my hits probably cut in half when I post ramblings such as these. But who really cares? I rejuvenate as I ramble on, and I put everything back into perspective. Like, the reason for this blog. And if rambling is what it takes to get over this writer’s ‘block’, well, take it or leave it.