One of the most widely circulated real-news stories this year is The New York Times’ In Wide Word of 24/7 Stress, Writers Blog Til They Drop. Chances are, you already read it, had it emailed to you or heard about it. Considering that I’m a freelance writer, it was a story hard to ignore. The story alleges that bloggers can kill themselves blogging in the hunt to report the Next Big Thing and thus give their sites a larger chunk of revenue share.
However, I hate to disappoint you, but blogging is not stressful in and of itself. In fact, I find it to be a real relief from my daily stress. I have two personal blogs that don’t generate money and three professional blogs that do. There does seem to be a difference between the blogger interviewed for the New York Times article than for "normal" bloggers. The former — and most stressed out kind — are journalists where the deadline was always yesterday. Don’t let their job pressures dissuade you from writing a diary, journal or blog. Getting your thoughts out of your head and onto paper is one of the most economic and effective ways of managing stress.
First Off
Just the word "blog" is can make you relax. It’s such a ludicrous-sounding word. I know it’s short for "weblog", but that’s not what I thought of when I first heard the word ‘blog" years ago. I thought it was a sound you made when a vine or a tentacle wrapped around you. You know — "Have I ever seem a giant squid around here? Nah, there aren’t any giant sq — blog!" So, just thinking "I’ve got to go work on the blogs now" can mostly put at least half a smile on my face.
Help In Survival Situations
I used to have a book on wilderness survival written by an ex-SAS guy, John Wiseman. In it, you learn things like how to survive in the woods after your airplane has gone down or how to find drinkable water in the Arctic. And you know what one thing he recommended for surviving difficult situations where you are stranded in the middle of nowhere?
If you guessed, "keep a journal", pat yourself on the book and go have a cookie. If you kept a journal (ordinary or "written blog") in survival situations, you can keep track of what plants are edible, any significant landmarks to remember and how long you’ve been stuck out in the middle of nowhere. He also says that it helps as a stress reliever and to give you a sense of purpose ("I can’t die yet — needs I must blog!")
So, if you don’t believe me, you can take it from John Wiseman. Blogging is not stressful and it can help you overcome stressful situations.
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2 Comments
Write a Comment»As types of sites go blogs are probably one of the more demanding types of sites and therefore generally more stressful. It’s also depends on your aspirations, if you are expecting your blog to support your family and it’s not then I guess that would be pretty stressful. On the other hand having a blog just to vent your spleen would be therapeutic.
I did try to make a distinction between the breaking-news types of blogs (online journalism) and the regular types of paid blog work (of which Where We Relax would be one). I write for three of these and have just been hired for a 4th. I also write web content, short stories, poems and white papers for businesses. Of all of these types of writing, the short stories and the white papers — I find — to be far more stressful thatn blogs. Thanks for taking the time to comment.