I wrote this as a response to both the recent New York Times article on blogger burnout as well as a host of posts I’ve read recently about blogging becoming a pain-in-the-ass; posts that appeared both inside and outside our infertility community. I talked about it myself on my 8th blogoversary this summer.  Being in the burnout portion of blogging is a difficult place to be, and I’m not sure if I have anything intelligent to say about it, but here are my thoughts gleaned from 8 years of continuous blogging without a break.

Yes, blogger burnout was recently an article in the New York Times, but before it hit mainstream media, I was already seeing post after post about people who had hit a wall with blogging. Carpicious Reader asked how we solve a problem like blogger burnout. Estella’s Revenge explained that she’s not just in a reading slump; she’s bored with book blogging. And Bookfoolery not only talked about the future of her blog, but pointed out others who are talking about this very same thing: blogger burnout.

Image: By Jake Givens via upsplash

When you find that sweet spot of blogging, it seems unbelievable that you’ll ever hit a slump.  It’s like any relationship that gets past that new phase and settles into that happy/getting to know each other/everything is beautiful phase.  You know you like the person.  You know they like you.  There is a predictable sense of rhythm.  You know that you’re going to have plans every weekend.  You know that it’s worth shaving your legs because it won’t be a waste: there is sex for the taking if you want it.  Life is good.

When we’re in that stage, we can’t believe that we’ll ever hit a time when the habits of the other person will start to annoy us.  Or that we’ll put out a lot of effort and not see a lot of response in return.  We can’t believe there will be a first fight that will make us question the stability and longevity of the relationship.  But that the day will come in every relationship when the shininess will wear off, and then it comes down to either weathering through or walking away.

The same goes for blogging.

When you first find your blogging groove, it is a beautiful thing.  You’re writing posts, people are reading them, they’re leaving comments.  You’re popping around the blogosphere with more blog post ideas than you’ll ever have time to write.  It’s fun; it feels like a big party online.  And then comes the day when you notice that your readership has dropped despite doing everything exactly the same.  People are no longer regularly commenting.  Your first troll stops by to crap on your work.  You notice how long it takes you to prep a post vs. what you receive in return when the post goes up, and it makes you question how you’re spending your time.

I’ve been blogging for over 8 years.  Pretty much every single day for 8 years.  I’ve never taken a blogging break, never slowed down my posting.

But I’ve felt blogger burnout.

I’ve felt it deeply and wondered why the hell I was blogging when there were dozens of other things that felt as if they had a bigger “payback” for energy expended.   It’s work to write a post.  I feels like I’m giving part of myself away to let people in, and I often wonder if I’m holding back enough for myself.

Each time I’ve felt blogger burnout, I’ve reminded myself that like every relationship, this is just a phase just as the golden time of blogging is a phase.  And that — like all relationships — if I see the worth, I need to be able to weather the good times and the bad times.

Sometimes people walk away.  Sometimes they come back and keep setting up blogs so they can feel the golden time of blogging and walk away again when the experience hits a valley.  And that is certainly one way to do things: to try to only experience the positive points of an activity or relationship.

But I prefer to stay and experience the whole, messy world of blogging.  I can’t say that I enjoy the valleys, but I know that every time I emerge from one, I hit higher and higher peaks.  Peaks that those who walk away never get to experience because they don’t do the slog through the valleys.  I see it as my reward for sticking through it, collecting wisdom, putting in my time.

I think blogging makes me a better writer.  I say that as an author with four published books under my belt.  Getting those book deals wasn’t an end point in my writing career, a plateau to land on and remain on, declaring, “I’ve figured it all out.”  I am always in a state of learning though my blog: what works with writing, what doesn’t work, how far can I push an idea before I lose the reader, how far do I need to push before I blow their mind, how can I write something that touches someone’s heart, how can I know when to step back from an idea and let it float away?

Blogging is a relationship like every other relationship.  Regardless of how big or small your blog is, you will hit valleys and peaks.  I like Design Sponge’s response to the New York Times article, explaining that so much of the stress is our perception instead of a message coming externally.  She also has her own take on the situation: bloggers need to evolve.  Blogging changes and we need to change with it.

There are too many people writing about how we now need our blogs to be more visual due to Pinterest or how we need to be active on social media to drive traffic, but not enough people saying the opposite: do what makes you happy and fulfills you as a blogger instead of drains you.

So I’ll say it.

Blogging is like one of those finger traps, where the harder you pull, the more you strain to keep up with blogging trends, the more you turn it into work, the faster it turns into a slog.  So release yourself and release your blog.  Look at today as just one moment in a long relationship.  Blogging may feel great or it may feel like crap, but that is neither here nor there.  If your goal is to be in this for the long-haul, then note where you are right now and then take a deep breath and write.

I promise you, however you feel today — good or bad — will not be the same way you’ll feel several months from now.  That is the only promise blogging and relationships bring with them; there will be good times and bad times, and you need to choose whether you’re going to stay in the game.

I’m staying in the game.

cross-posted with BlogHer

Fine, it’s far from realistic: a boy posts a story on his brand-spanking-new blog and suddenly it goes viral and donations pour in from all corners of the Internet to help them pay for their dog’s surgical bills.  He’s able to Google his name and see that 2,876 people have read it.  But really, Jojo Moyes tenuous grasp on how the Internet works aside, she digs down into the soft heart of why people blog in her book, One Plus One.

Nicky explains why he wrote a blog post in a moment of anger (page 329):

For those awful few days, at least, writing it down and putting it out there had actually helped.  It had felt like he was telling someone, even if that someone didn’t really know who he was and probably didn’t care.  He just hoped that someone would hear what had happened, would see the injustice of it.

When I was little, I’d say, “I’m going to tell my mum,” even when I knew the transgression wasn’t big enough to get adults involved.  It wasn’t that I wanted her to solve it; I didn’t even really want her to get involved and possibly get me into more trouble (the sort that comes after you rat someone out).  I just wanted to tell her, to know that someone other than me knew this… thing… this big, furry monster of a thought that was weighing down my chest.

I just wanted someone else to carry that monster too.

And then I grew up.  I still confide in my mother and consider her one of my best friends. (Wait… mums aren’t supposed to be friends with their kids… Screw that: I’m friends with my mother and I like hanging out with her.)  But at some point, I started confiding in my peers.

I remember the first time I unloaded a big dark secret to a peer.  We were sitting in the back seat of my car, eating a car-picnic lunch that we picked up at Sutton Place Gourmet.  My heart was pounding, thinking about speaking the words aloud.  And then once they were out, there was such a sense of relief.  Why hadn’t I done this sooner?  Telling a story.  Confiding in someone.  Making them hold the monster-y thought too.

And then there was blogging, and now there are many people out there, holding my monster-y thoughts while I hold their monster-y thoughts.  That’s the reality of monster-y thoughts: when you have multiple hands holding them, they get seemingly lighter.  Much so that you have the energy to hold other people’s thoughts as well as your own.

Later in the scene, she also sums up well that first moment when you fall in love with the Internet.  That moment is what keep me coming back to the Internet, even when my cynical side only sees the dick pics and obnoxious Facebook status updates.  It creates muscle memory, so your fingers keep typing.  She writes (on page 331):

His heart was doing something strange … He wanted to laugh at the magnificence of total strangers.  At their kindness and their goodness and the fact that there were actual people out there being good and nice.

Because buried underneath the clickbait and the infuriating stories and the disappointing stats is that truth: that the Internet allows us to be our best selves and to feel other people’s best selves.

I could not have gotten through years of infertility without you guys.

I read every terms of service (TOS) before signing up for a site.  Yes, I am that one person who reads them.  Companies, you wondered who that person was?  It’s me.  Hi!

I read them because I don’t want to have any regrets.  Just because a site has a terrible terms of service doesn’t mean that I won’t create an account.  It’s just that I use that site differently than I would have if the terms were different.

While it would be nice if everyone read every section of every terms of service, I also know that most people don’t have the time to do so.  So this post will teach you how to quickly scan the terms and figure out how YOU want to use their site (if at all).  Bookmark it and come back to it every time you have a new site to use.

“You grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license”

There is language a site needs to put in their terms of service to protect themselves. For instance, they need to ask you a royalty-free license or you could claim in the future that they owe you money because you brought traffic to their site with your content. They need the license to be worldwide because they need to make sure they’re covered regardless of where their users live.

BUT… there is a red flag word in there: sub-license.  This means the site can license your content to a third party without contacting you or asking your permission (because you gave them permission with the TOS).  They do not need to be granted this type of license in order to run their site, but they do need to do this to make money in the future because your content is their asset.

Sites that tell you they can sub-license your content: Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter all have very broad licenses that state they can sell your content to third parties.  I have accounts on all of those sites, but I do not upload any images, videos, or words that I wouldn’t mind if they ended up on a billboard on I-95.  I am also cognizant that anything I upload could be used to promote a product or idea that I wouldn’t want to promote or endorse.  So… I tread carefully and consume more than I upload.

“You give us a perpetual and irrevocable license”

Before you sign up for a site, make sure you can leave a site.  And make sure you can take your content too.  What if you upload photos of your child, and then your child grows up and begs you to take their image off the Internet?  With certain sites, that won’t be a problem.  With other sites, once you upload any content, they are allowed to perpetually and irrevocably hold onto that content.  (And with the ability to sub-license, perhaps sell that content in the future.)

You can close your account at Twitter or YouTube, and you can delete your tweet or movie, but both sites are allowed to hold on and use your content in the future.  You cannot completely close an Ancestry.com account (wish you hadn’t uploaded your family tree?), Pinterest, or WordPress.com account.  (Along with many other sites.)  Before you sign up for a new account, make sure you know if you can leave and what happens to your account and content if you do.

“Customer information will of course be one of the transferred assets”

Your data is a site’s most valuable asset.  Some sites collect more personal information than others.  Some sites, such as Netflix, disclose non-personal information to third parties.  They may know X number of people watched Y film, but they don’t know the names of all the people in the X category.  Other sites, such as Amazon, admit that if they ever sell their company, they’re selling your personal information too.

It is somewhat impossible to utilize the online world without having your personal information collected.  I look for sites that are open about their practices vs. those who leave it vague.  I trust transparency.  At least I know what I am getting.

“Does not claim ownership of any Content that you post”

Make sure the terms of service state something along the lines of “You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services.”  In other words, you want to make sure that YOU retain the copyright to YOUR work, and that by uploading the content, you are not transferring your copyright to the site.

It is unusual for a site to ask you to transfer the copyright.  Usually the site will ask you to grant them a license to use your work as they wish, though the creator still retains the copyright.

“We may revise these Terms from time to time”

Be careful with sites that tell you that they can make major changes to their terms of service and the most they will do is post them somewhere on their site.  Unless you are continuously going back and checking the site’s blog or TOS page for changes, chances are, you will not know when changes take place.  Even without seeing and signing off on those changes, by continuing to use the site, you accept the new terms.

What you want is a site that will contact you when they make major changes to their policy.  That is a site that operates with transparency.  Even better is a site that will allow users to weigh in on major changes to their prior policies.

Fine Print

Do a quick scan for the term “third parties.”  You want to know how using a site connects you and your content to third parties.  Are they sharing your information with third parties?  Selling your content to third parties?  You need to know where your information and content may travel.  Will it travel?  Who can say.  But once you give a site that right, they are allowed to use it.

There are other red flags I watch for, such as giving up my right to legal action (“You agree to defend, indemnify and hold us harmless”), or the jurisdiction for any lawsuits (I’m not flying to another state in order to participate in a lawsuit).  But they’re not deal breakers.

In fact, very few terms are deal breakers for me when it comes to using a site.  Will I upload content if I don’t love the terms?  Hell no.  But will I create an account so I can follow other people and read along, yes, and I’ll upload content that I’m okay with being out of my control.  Sort of.

I’m not a lawyer; I’m just an online user who is very interested in the way sites collect information and do business.

This is what I do.

I show up.

Even when I don’t feel like writing, I sit down and write.

It may not sound very profound… probably because it’s not… but sometimes I still need to remind myself to do it because I am a human being and get caught up in all the things that stop me from showing up.

If I let myself, I could distract myself indefinitely.

*******

This is what stops me from showing up:

• Waiting for people to arrive to read before I’ve written something worth reading.
• Worrying that not enough people are reading what I’ve written and therefore wondering if it’s worth writing more.
• Feeling insecure about what I’ve written.
• Feeling good about what I’ve written but wondering why my writing is not getting the response that someone else’s writing is getting, and therefore returning to what is the point if I can’t get that response.
• Checking email or social media or other people’s blogs.  Harvard Business Review is correct in that this is an insane way to exist and expect to be productive and get work accomplished: “Suppose each time you ran low on an item in your kitchen—olive oil, bananas, napkins—your instinctive response was to drop everything and race to the store. How much time would you lose? How much money would you squander on gas? What would happen to your productivity?  We all recognize the inefficiency of this approach. And yet surprisingly, we often work in ways that are equally wasteful.”

All those things, if I don’t hold them at bay, stop me from showing up.  Because they all make me doubt myself or waste energy in comparisons or wonder the point.

Here’s the point of writing: to take something out of my head and put it down on the page.  To tell myself a story.  To create a character or plotline that holds my interest.  To make sense of my thoughts.

None of those reasons contain anyone else except myself.

And that’s important for me to remember because I cannot control whether anyone publishes my books.  I can’t control whether anyone reads my posts.  I can’t do anything except show up and hope that what I have to say resonates with someone else.

So I show up.

I sit down and open a blank blog post screen or bring up my manuscript on the computer.

That’s how I get myself to sit down, day after day, and write.  Even on days when my brain tells me that dedicating my time to writing makes no sense.

Seven posts seems like a good place to wrap all of this up: a nice, neat number that often is used to signify completion.  Seven deadly sins.  Seven virtues.  Seven seas.  And seven posts… well… really ten posts… about the same book.  They were:

1. Do We Have the Right to be Forgotten (Part One)
2. Do We Have the Right to be Forgotten (Part Two)
3. Do We Have the Right to be Forgotten (Part Three)
4. Opt-ions One
5. Opt-ions Two
6. Opt-ions Three
7. Opt-ions Four
8. Opt-ions Five
9. Opt-ions Six

And now, Opt-ions Seven.

Image: Ali T via Flickr

The book we’ve been discussing is The Circle by Dave Eggers.  Which a bunch of you guessed the moment I brought up whether we have the right to be forgotten, and many more of you already know because you emailed me to ask which book.  (Do you also peek at the last page of a book?  I do too.)  It’s a good book; a little clunky at times and a little heavy-handed with the analogies, but enjoyable and it fulfills my mark of a good book: it changes my mood or makes me think.  And this book did both.

I would guess based on this book as well as his lack of social media accounts that I’m probably more comfortable online than Dave Eggers.  And I’m probably less comfortable than many of you because I read and weigh every terms of service plus I adjust my usage of a site accordingly.

The place I am most myself is on my blog; this is where you will find my deepest thoughts.  This is why when people say “blogging is dead,” I look at the people to my left and right and say, “nope.”  There are still plenty of us who want ownership of our words and images.  Who don’t want to place them on someone else’s real estate.  This is my home on the Web, and all those social media accounts are places I visit.  Which isn’t to say that I’m not myself on Facebook or Twitter or other sites.  I’m just a very guarded version of myself.

And a lot of that has to do with control.

I’m under no illusion that I have complete control of my words and images as they go up on this site.  The moment this post goes up online, I release my control over its trajectory.  But maybe I still feel as if I have some control over the blog post because I’ve opted in to what I’m sharing.  In the same way that I have control over my car whereas I don’t have control over my ride on a plane, even if, at the same time, my car ride could still be affected by the actions of others.  If you haven’t guessed, I am more comfortable in cars than in planes.

Anyway, on this blog, I’ve chosen what I put on the screen, what you know.  If I don’t want you to know something, I simply don’t tell you.  For instance, you don’t know what type of underwear I wear.  Haven’t told you.  And I won’t.  And so you’ll never know.

Maybe I’m squeamish about all other places on the Web because there is so much taken from me that I have not opted in to give.  I mean, yes, I read the terms of service and understood — a bit — how this was going to go down.  But I don’t think anyone knew back when they started their Facebook account that in owning one, you were allowing the company to track all of your Web browser history.  Facebook knows what sites you visit, and it’s all tied to the name you gave on your Facebook account and the identifying numbers associated with your computer.  We can opt out of being served ads based on our browser history, but “the Web sites you visit may still collect information for other purposes.”  The reality is that you need to revisit that opt out site on a daily basis, every time the cookies expire or are deleted, to make sure you’re not being tracked.  It’s exhausting.

Most of the time, it makes me want to throw up my hands and say, “you win.”

I don’t even know whom I’m saying that to or what I mean by winning.

I labeled this series “Opt-ion” as a play on the idea of opting in.  Options.  Having options.  Electing to do something.  And separately, the concept of ions, which is an atom that can have a positive or negative charge based on the number of electrons and protons.  Depending on how we use it, the Internet has the chance to be a positive space or a negative space.

It raises the last interesting question: can anything be successful if people are given the option to opt out?  Social rules work because while they can’t be enforced except through other social concepts such as shaming, we all opt in to social rules to make society run smoothly.  We don’t, for instance, greet people with the words “go fuck yourself!” even if we’re thinking it in our brain.  Mostly because we know that society would breakdown if we didn’t get everyone opting in to the idea of niceties.  So we smile benignly, and comment on the weather, and in doing so, society hums along without anyone’s feelings getting hurt.

If we told people that they had the option to be polite, no harm no foul if they chose to go a different route, would anyone be polite?  Or does politeness only work if we act as if everyone needs to opt in?

There are so many places where we can’t opt out, and it helps to keep things running smoothly.  You can’t just decide to drive a car.  You need to get a license.  Many people don’t want people to be able to opt out of a background check to purchase a gun, and we want that background check to mean something.

So it raises the question: if we’re serious about stopping crime, if we’re serious about making the world a better place, should we allow the world the ability to opt out when it comes to tracking, if that tracking is being used for the greater good?  Would you agree to have every aspect of your life tracked — your browser history, your physical movements, your actions — if it meant a complete annihilation of any crime including the ones that hit closest to home such as domestic violence or child abuse?

If we only track the “bad guys” that we know, what do we do about all the “bad guys” we don’t know?

The book is chilling; I’m not going to lie to you.  As I said, it changed my mood.  Made me feel a little queasy.  Made me wonder how much I really wanted to carry my mobile phone.  Or use it.  But maybe that’s a good thing.  I am not going offline any time soon; I get too much out of blogging and social media.  But all these questions do make me comport myself in a certain way, and teach the kids to comport themselves in a certain way.  And again, I don’t think that’s a bad thing.  Like ions, it’s important to realize that everything can have a positive or negative charge.