Blog like there’s nobody reading

I’ve been in been in the blogging doldrums of late. I haven’t published many posts and even my weekly reflections have felt like a chore.

When I think back to my first year of this blog I usually posted 2-3 times a week, last year I dropped to between 1-2 posts a week and this year blogging has been a strictly once a week deal. In fact my weekly reflections are the only reason that this blog is being updated at all.

It isn’t like I don’t have anything to write about. Part of the problem is that I’ve been so busy doing stuff that I haven’t really had time to stop, think and write about what I’ve been up to.  I thought that my 2nd year might be a little less overwhelming then last year. However to my surprise this year has been more frantic. While things in the classroom are progressing well, this first half of the year has been insane.

The Apple Distinguished Educator institute in Bali, Google Teacher Academy in Sydney, three educamps and ignition have meant I’ve spent a lot of weekends away from home. Don’t get me wrong I feel so incredibly privileged to have enjoyed some incredible opportunities this year. I feel like I’ve learned more in the last 6 months than I have in the previous two years. But the problem is mind is in near constant overdrive trying to process all these incredible learning experiences.

The result?

Lots of half-written posts.

In fact I looked in my drafts folder and was surprised to find I had over 100 posts languishing in draft form. Some of them just a few sentences, half-formed ideas that I need to transform into something coherent and then actually publish.

Then there is another group of posts languishing in draft because I don’t want to publish them. I can be ranty at times and my propensity to call a spade a shovel can make for good stats but the problem is I am interacting a lot these days with people who read my posts. To be clear how write on my blog is no different to me in staff meetings or in the classroom. But of course being a bit more out in the open, always carries that inherent risk of a major SMOG (Social Media Own Goal) which has made me a lot more risk adverse these days. I’m also a lot less likely to infuse details of my life into posts which means I don’t publish nearly as often I should. I’ve had a few instances of longing for the days when people had no idea who the person was writing these inane posts.

So what is this point of this ‘Leave Brittany Alone’ post?

This blog has gained a far wider readership  then all the rest of my writing put together. I’ve blogged for over a decade as a stranger in a strange land, a returning from my OE trapped in New Zealand now what, stepmum and traveller with next to nobody reading my work.

The fact that some people read and comment is cool, that’s pretty much why bloggers publish their writing. But then I was hit with a gradual realisation that ‘oh crap people are actually reading what I’m writing,  I need to watch what I say.’ A classic case of Betham’s idea of the panopticon in action, the perception of surveillance leading to changed behaviour.

But truth be told what I write here is really not all that important.

And I need to get back to blogging like nobody is reading.