Some time ago, I volunteered as a guest blogger at Mike Moran‘s Biznology Blog. My first post was published yesterday, along with an introduction.
That post was actually due two weeks ago, but I had zero to offer by then. The major constraint in my blogging activity is to allocate time to write, but this time I was experiencing a bit of a writer’s block.
I have no shortage of things I’d like to write about in my own personal blogs, even though I’m well aware that most of those topics will go by unnoticed. That’s actually what I like about having personal blogs: I don’t feel bad even if nobody reads a post of mine there, as I ultimately use my blog as a personal reflection tool, so a long tail of one – me – is good enough for what I want to accomplish.
Writing for a group blog is a bit more challenging. I haven’t contributed to The Orange Chair blog for a long time, but my guilty feeling is somehow lessened by the fact that it’s still an experiment, a work-in-progress – at least that’s what my id tells my super-ego. Bernie, Sacha and Jen (co-bloggers at the Orange Chair) may not be as forgiving 🙂 .
Writing at Biznology felt different though: It introduced the fear of failure to the process. Mike Moran’s blog is well regarded in the Internet Marketing space, and somehow I felt that I had to write something at THE Mike Moran’s quality level, and naturally I couldn’t do that. After days of procrastination, I realized that this is also a learning curve, and decided to publish something that I did not find to be good, but it was a necessary stepping stone for me to get where I want to be. Take a look at it if you have some time. Hopefully I’ll get the hand of it as I go.
The bamboo raft 
Hi Aaron,
I’m glad that you decided to give it a try–to “do it wrong quickly.” I liked your first post very much, precisely because it is an idea that I never would have had–I am not looking for clones of my ideas and my style, but rather for something fresh and new. It might surprise you to know that I get writer’s block sometimes, too, and that I am often my own harshest critic. But I try to remember that “90% of success is just showing up.” I hope you’ll keep showing up, too.
Hey Mike. Thanks for the kind words and for the opportunity to write in your blog. I’m excited about it and already looking for themes to cover in my next posts.