Hitting my stride

I think it has gotten a little easier for me lately. I started out strong, and there was a tough stretch in there where I got convinced I had nothing to say and there wasn't even any point to doing this project because no one cared and blah blah blah. But it has gotten easier lately, I think it's because we're almost done, and also because everyone's so supportive when you admit you're struggling.

I had technical problems there for a bit--my blog posts weren't actually showing up because of a MySQL problem, and I didn't realize it for a few days. It's all fixed now.

I'd been really quiet for a while before this, and had just started posting again at all, so any of the 3 or 4 people who still read my blog are probably feeling flooded :-)

I agree that the support really helps. The weird thing for me was that I joined the "Running out of blogging topics" group, never posted anything, and then suddenly was ready to start going! Maybe just knowing that other people out there were struggling too made me feel better. Or maybe it was a coincidence. At any rate, I'm grateful! I really didn't want to end the month with a series of booooring posts because I couldn't come up with anything better.

I did NaBloPoMo last year for the first time and when I started loosing things to talk about well I came up with the concept of theme days - so this year I started with them right from the start!

I have been blogging this month under the following themes:
Mondays - Activism is Fun-Days Mondays
Tuesdays - Cute Merrin Story (my daughter)
Wednesday - Picture of the Day
Thursday - not a theme but where I tell what we've been up to during the week
Friday - Look what we had for supper (I give a recipe)
Saturday - Early workings of a future Picasso (arts and crafts done by my daughter)
Sunday - not a theme but telling what we did during the weekend

Having those categories has at times somewhat stifled me but for the most part I really do appreciate them to help guide me along and keep my motivation up. And I even have friends giving me recipes to try because they hope they will end up featured on a Friday!

And now I have a question for you - and it relates to this:

Do you consider putting up a picture or a link without any accompanying words to 'count' for NaBloPoMo? I mean, it is called 'PoMo' and not 'WriMo' - so I think that the posting doesn't necessarily have to include any writing.

What do others think?

Good question. Hmmm.

I seldom post just links, or just pictures. I feel a need to say why I posted whatever it is, or it just goes in my Tumblog rather than my "real" blog.

I really like your theme days. I'm either very talky or totally clammed up, it seems. If I open the post window, I can usually find something to post about.

I think that theme days are a great idea, and I keep telling myself that I need to have at least a couple of them, but I can't decide what themes to do! And then I figure that it's just one more thing to worry about, so I never get around to it. I'm a bit lazy like that. But maybe next year.

I don't post just pictures or links, but I don't see a problem with it once in awhile. Technically, it's a post, so I think it would count. I'd probably write a sentence or two anyway.

I think it's getting a little easier as I go along.

I've had a couple of tough days, when I wasn't feeling well (physically or emotionally). Fortunately, I had a list of 'future post' ideas, so I was able to grab something and put up a mini post. For the most part, though, the hardest thing has been to decide which topic to write on...

I did it last year and really struggled. This year, after (like you) the first couple of weeks, it feels like a breeze. I'm also blogging more about myself and my life rather than trying to find something amusing or interesting to blog about. I started out thinking during the day about what I might blog about that night, jotting down ideas, but now I'm mostly just sitting down and writing from scratch. I guess it's like any kind of writing; the more you write, the more you write!