I am, as Paul Simon wrote, weary and feeling small. When I look at this vast edifice of a website I’ve created, stone by stone, day by day, over the past seven years, it sometimes overwhelms me; I almost ask myself, “How the Hell did I do all that?” And then I remember: it was through countless hours spent at the keyboard, typing literally millions of words (almost 2600 posts x an average of 1000 words each = 2,600,000 words). And that doesn’t even count all the tweets, articles, and other content. For the past five years, and especially the last two, I’ve been slowly decreasing the amount of work I have to do to maintain it; I’ve relaxed my length requirements, instituted features (like diaries, links columns and back issues) which take less work, brought in more guests, eliminated some time-and-labor intensive regular features, split the weekly news column into two parts and otherwise stretched my labor while lessening the amount of it required to give myself more free time. And now I need to do that again. When I first started The Honest Courtesan, I was releasing a decade of pent-up self-expression and trying to distract myself from a disintegrating marriage by burying myself in work (which is pretty much what I always did back before I realized what a tremendously stupid idea absolute sobriety was); now I’m older, wiser, sadder and wearier, and I just can’t maintain the pace I could then (which, to be honest, wasn’t really healthy back then either). I’m worn thin and threadbare, and I need to devote more time and energy to paying work and to self-care (which includes spending quality time with people who love me). So I’m making another small adjustment to my procedures: since Friday is the day sacred to Aphrodite, I’m going to start taking some Fridays off. That doesn’t mean you won’t get content on Fridays; I’m absolutely committed to providing my readers with new material every day as long as it’s physically possible for me to do so. What it means is that a lot of Friday columns are going to be light and very low-effort, like the collection of pictures from Ireland I gave you two weeks ago. That will reduce my stress levels, decrease my energy output by almost one-seventh (fitting, since I’ve been doing this now for almost a seventh of my life), and make more time for travel (both for business and pleasure). And since a lot of you have been urging me to do something like this for years, I’m sure most of you are glad to hear it.
Feeling Small
August 4, 2017 by Maggie McNeill
Posted in Diary, Philosophy | Tagged Aphrodite, blogging, psychology | 11 Comments
11 Responses
Leave a Reply to Deborah BeckettCancel reply
Visit my bookstore
This Month
Old Posts
Call me
Become a Blog Patron
Contact Maggie
If you’d like to ask me a question, click here.
If you made a comment and it doesn’t appear within a few hours, click on this one.
If you’d like to alert me to an interesting item, use this one.
And if you have a request, bouquet or brickbat or just want to introduce yourself, this is the one for you.
A Few References
Maggie on Twitter
My TweetsBoring but necessary legal stuff
All original content on this website (i.e. all of my columns, pages and anything else which I write myself) is protected under international copyright law as of the time it is posted; though you may link to it as you please or quote passages (as long as you attribute the quote to me), please do not reproduce whole columns without my express written permission. In other words, you have to say “pretty please with sugar on top” first, and then wait for me to say “okey-dokey”.
I hear you, Maggie. I’ve also had to learn balance to avoid burnout.
I should be very happy to see more pix from Ireland.
I guess since this is my first year I should feel shame for wanting to urge you on in creating more content and seeking more dialogue on the issue that you love. Seven years huh? I suppose that is the life span on a web blogger. (considering your amount of success) I suppose when you got started you were not looking for much, just a touch.
You deserve to take the time you need. If anyone tries to talk you out of it, remember by taking a little off, the quality of what remains will be saved.
That is a really striking picture, and does a good job of illustrating the theme of your essay.
Nothing more to say, I guess, other than good for you, and enjoy yourself.
Please take good care of yourself. You are a treasure.
Yes! She is a treasure. And your words are wise. (Nattie Roman)
When thinking about the massive effort that you put into this site a few years ago some little things came to mind. You are very thorough in the way that you do things, little details, for example how an outside link works. I get the impression that you would rather not do something than do it halfway. If I was ever wanting to learn everything about this WP platform I would hire you. And reading your blog has also been an education in quality posting. When you posted recently how you never tried to grow your audience and influence to this magnitude and that it just happened we understood and knew before you said it. Doing enough of the right things consistently does not require much salesmanship and marketing BS like SEO and other worthless crap. If I can share a compliment by a former client that applies to you, “People like to say that so and so was an overnight success. He was not an overnight success; overnight he got noticed. No one sees the years or even decades of hard work, and we live in a society that prefers to ignore it.”
You are now in a position where you could go many place and do not realize it, but on your terms: radio, TV, print journalism, consulting might even be the best. Do it on your terms now and contribute here as you wish. We all know that whatever you do it will not be halfway whether it be work or love.
The candle that burns twice as bright only lasts half as long.
You can’t blog well if you don’t take care of you and yours.
Take care of yourself, and send what you can out into the World.
Hi, Maggie, While I love the depth and care of your reporting, I appreciate the effort. I would like to suggest that many might agree with me that the simple posting of a picture or two of you would amply satisfy the desirous connection. With a smile, Nick
Nick Fowler nick@islandinsights.net 206-909-1010
>
You are admirably. Whatever you do is gorgeous