One of the biggest problems that I have with my blog, is that I spend too effort making it look nice.
Not that it takes my time away from writing, or that it's not important. I definitely appreciate the effort I take with the design of my blog.
The problem is, I appreciate it a bit too much.
My blog currently has around 336k words across 1k or so posts. So I'd say there's a fair bit of writing here.
But when I spend too much time refining the design of the blog, it makes me want to only publish the most elegant and perfect essays. It starts to feel like a brand new notebook where you try to write as neatly as possible, never making a mistake, etc.
That’s why at times I’ve written posts along the lines of “This is how I want to write for my blog” before. I guess it's some kind of pre-emptive warning to try and set the readers expectations. But I think it was more for my benefit than for anyone reading.
At the same time, I don't want to belittle that type of blog post. Because I think it has its use. While, it may not serve any use on its own, it gets the ball rolling. Whatever friction was there before has been slightly reduced.
Maybe that's why bloggers always talk about writing regularly and being consistent. For me, it seems that biggest factor that helps me write for my blog is momentum.
My blog isn't a perfect Moleskine notebook. It's a old and battered collection of notes, photos, longer pieces of writing, and all sorts of scribbles and mistakes. And sometimes I need to remember that.