Kortney Garrison

Homeschooling With Ease

  • Instagram
  • RSS
  • Twitter

so you want to write 300 blog posts…

12 July 2014 by Kortney

july 09 151well, i made it!  i hit my goal of writing 300 blog posts before my birthday…and then i stopped posting.  not really, but almost!  it just happened to be a very busy week: VBS every afternoon and three (!) classes running concurrently for me.  add in summer temperatures that are getting warmer every day, and my mornings have been quite full.  but i wanted to write a bit about what i learned this year.

  • give yourself margin.  my goal was to write 300 posts in a year, not to write every day.  i had a day off every week plus some sick days built in.  that made it feel a lot more spacious and a lot less like work.
  • write a series.  i wrote two–one about keeping advent and one about celebrating the 50 days of Easter.  a series offers focus for the writing.  it also relieves the tedium of always reporting what’s happening in our days because there’s not all that much variation: we went to the library!  we took a walk!  read this neat article!  and when you’ve got the long year still in front of you, it feels so good to map out a few days or weeks of writing and maybe even write a few posts early and schedule them to appear on the appointed day.  there’s nothing like waking up and already having a post up!
  • participate online.  of course there are the few sites you always visit, but what about throwing your net a little wider?  this year i joined twitter.  i know!  but it’s become a great way for me to find new people outside my normal homeschool mama blog universe.  i also went deeper.  also for the first time this year i participated in a MOOC.  again, it’s something good to write about, something a little outside my normal byways to think about.  i wasn’t taking the classes to improve my blogging, but all the writing and thinking spilled over and made this place richer.
  • write for 31 days.   i also linked my Advent series with The Nester’s 31 Days series.  serious bump in traffic there!  i don’t know how many of you are still reading all these months later, but i’m happy to have you!  the series gives you a smaller canvas to work on and helps build momentum.  it’s really my #1 piece of advice.  the convergence of ModPo and 31 Days last October made it easy for me to write nearly every day.
  • lower your standards.  William Stafford says that when you’re writing and you get stuck, you should lower your standards and keep going.  what passes as a blog post certainly got a bit looser this year!  i started posting more pictures, more quotes.  and every week i had two mini-series–one called Sabbath Rest, a simple image and quote from the lectionary for that day, and one featuring a quote from the archives of the homeschooling magazine called Growing Without Schooling.  these posts were restorative to me.  i got to spend time reading, pondering, looking.  i hope they were of use to you too!

so those are my five bullet points of advice.  go forth and write!  i can’t wait to see what *you* make!

Share this:

  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)

Filed Under: 300 before 40, learning all the time

Comments

  1. Claudine says

    13 July 2014 at 6:59 am

    Congratulations on reaching 300! And a Happy Birthday too!

    p.s. You won the Art Together giveaway at becoming claudine…will e-mail you with details!

    • kortney says

      13 July 2014 at 2:43 pm

      happy happy happy! thanks so much Claudine ♥

Click to Subscribe

Archives

wonder

Our life in the Jungle

Categories

(with words) 50 days of Easter 100 Days of Soul Rest 300 before 40 adventures books and such celebration daily life GWS keeping advent learning all the time show your work teaching our own The Wonder Project thirty-one days this bright world what we eat

natural Building

Some links on this website are affiliate links. That simply means I will receive a referral commission if you choose to purchase something through the link. Thanks!

Kortney Garrison © 2021

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.