• June: 28
• July: 22
• August: 10
• September: 9
• And October, counting this post, thus far, I’ve posted six times.

I’m not at all happy about this, and it has certainly not been intentional. So, what gives? That’s a good question; I don’t really know.

I haven’t lost the desire to write here; I hit the WordPress administration frequently with intentions of starting drafts, of writing about things that have been going on in my life, and… nothing happens. I look at the blank editing window for a bit, type a word or two which I don’t care much for, and then go on to other internet abodes. I’ve even taken up the oft-recommended habit of writing down my ideas on paper while away from the computer, so I’ll “have” them when the time comes to write up a post. That just adds another step in my currently broken routine: I stare at the editing window, look at my notes, type a few words, sigh, and bail out.

Yesterday I turned to those who are smarter and sexier than myself, my fellow 9rules members. They gave some good advice. Cas recommended that if I need a blogging break, make it official; put up a “gone fishing” (or in my case, probably “reading”) sign and let readers know I’ll be back in a week or two. Others recommended that I relax a bit. Beating myself up over the fact that I’m not blogging doesn’t help; it probably just exacerbates the problem. Perhaps I’ve also been overly hard on myself on what I’m writing about; I suppose not every post has to be a masterpiece. I also think that, in the back of my head, I’ve been really wanting to write lengthy posts about history; when those didn’t come to me right away, I felt that I couldn’t write anything at all. This being my personal blog, I thankfully have the freedom to write about whatever I want; mentally boxing myself in in regards to what I can write is more than a little silly. Special thanks in particular must be given to Kamigoroshi, who rightly pointed out that, on a personal blog, the very problem of not being able to write anything can be turned into a post; it was this advice which gave me the impetus to write this.

My plans, then, are pretty simple: relax, experience life, and not be so damn nitpicky about my own writing. I think I really need to focus on that last one, because I think being my “own worst critic” has been a major factor in my writing (or, lately, the lack thereof). I’m also going to relax on swinging the beat-stick; if I find that on a given day, I can’t write something, so be it. Hopefully putting these mindsets into place will help things run a bit more smoothly around here, and the number of posts will raise again. I’m sure, though, that if it does nothing else, it’ll help me feel a bit better. I’ve been positively bummed about my blog here lately.

Cheers to those who gave advice. You guys rock.

Ali2 is the next version of 9rules that promises to improve upon the great 9rules formula of providing you with great content. We are not hesitant to say that this is our most important launch since Version 1 and can not wait to show the world what we have been working so hard on for months. Members have been playing around with it this week and the reception has been extremely positive. [#]

I’ve poked around in some of the new stuff, and seen screenshots of some of the other new stuff, and it does indeed look quite cool. I’m looking forward to seeing how things with the 9rules community progress post-launch.

I wholeheartedly recommend dropping by at 9rules.com if you’ve not been before. There really is some good stuff there to be had, both in the content from members (no, I’m not patting my own back!) and the Notes. You should, of course, sign up for your own my.9rules account. If you do that, you can even add me as a friend of yours.

With the launch of this latest incarnation of 9rules, I’m “recommitting” myself to 9rules, along with the 9 original rules:

1. Love what you do.
2. Never stop learning.
3. Form works with function.
4. Simple is beautiful.
5. Work hard, play hard.
6. You get what you pay for.
7. When you talk, we listen.
8. Must constantly improve.
9. Respect your inspiration.

I think I’ve stuck closely to these, but in one respect, I think my blog has fallen behind in one area: “must constantly improve”. With the onset of fall semester and the dwindling of my available free time, the quality of my blog has suffered a bit. I’m going to keep blogging about books, but I’m also going to get back to writing about things that got me into 9rules: history, religion, more in depth commentary / fleshed out thoughts on various things.

Here’s to a successful launch of Ali2, as well as my recommittal to improving my blog and myself, always. Hope to see you at the launch.

The ironic thing is you built your audience by writing what you wanted to write so in theory they should have no problem with the stuff you write, but yet I know some of us still fall into the trap of wondering if they will like what we put out or not.

That is indeed rather ironic. I built up a small audience for my blog by writing about what interested me; I was even accepted into the awesome blog network, 9Rules, based on what I was writing. Now that I have a decent little audience, I’ve crawled into my hole, worrying whether or not what I’m writing on my blog is interesting or not. That’s not only ironic, that’s just dumb. Furthermore, while I doubt I’m ever going to be a wonderful novelist or anything like that, one reason I started System 13 was to try and improve my writing ability. It’s rather difficult to improve one’s writing ability when you’ve stopped writing, isn’t it?

Now that I’ve sat down and wrote this out (both for the site and for me, truth be told), I know the answer, and what a simple answer it is: just write. Quit worrying so much and just write something – anything. The rest will follow. I need to look back through my archives and see what it was that was inspiring me to write when I started: books, sci-fi, history. Cliché or not, I need to get back to my blog ‘roots.’