1) Writer's block... too many ideas, never enough time.
This is a type of writer's block that I seem to get. And I'm not sure I realized it until I saw a vlog in which another blogger talked about it.
This is when you have a great idea for a specific blog post or project, one that will require some time and effort. And you end up so focused on that idea, that you just can't seem to write anything else until you deal with it.
Unfortunately sometime's those ideas don't pan out, or sometimes the full weekend day required to devote to the project just doesn't seem to come around. I mean let's admit it, life is super busy.
So I've been a bit idea blocked. I've got things in the works, and for a while, I've been so hung up on the need to execute them, that I've neglected to write the simple, easy posts.
2) The Tour De France.
Ok, so let's be honest, the this is all I've watched/seen/cared about the Tour.... this year or any year. Those crazy switchbacks are the final climb, and considering how hard of a time I have riding my bike up the hill to Foothills Hospital on my way into work in the morning. When I saw this picture on facebook the other day my jaw dropped.
So, if I care so little about the Tour de France, why has it been getting in the way of me writing a blog post? Well there's this little thing in the fibre community called the Tour De Fleece. The idea here is to get out your spindles and spinning wheels and spin every day that the tour rides. And so I've been putting all of my extra time in the evenings into spinning more than usual. So I haven't been reading blogs. And reading blogs is one of the things that puts the most fire under my ass to make me write in my blog.
3. YouTube.
And not just watching it!
That's right people, I took the plunge and started posting videos to YouTube with a vengeance.
So I have been a major fan of YouTube for the last year, driven in part by the fact that I gave up cable TV about a year ago, and instead invested in an HDMI cable to connect my laptop to my TV. But also by the quality and quantity of content available, all for free. I mean 300 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. It's just pure probability that some of it has to be great to watch. But the creators behind some of YouTube's greatest channels (I mean , the Holy Trinity of Grace, Mamrie and Hannah, along with a pair of Greens, you've got yourself a full house there alone).
In addition, a number of great bloggers have gone vlogger. And from my point of view, why not, bigger audiences (More than 1 billion people watch YouTube) and lets face it, people are lazy, why read when you can watch? (OK I still like reading, but I can't really knit while I read blogs...or not nearly as fast). So I have to admit, a few times in the past I've sat down and tried to film a vlog... only to delete it without showing it to anyone.
But then I discovered Knitting Podcasts, these fearless women (and some men too) were sitting down in front of their lap tops, all around the world and talking, unedited, into their cameras, sharing their knitting progress, and stories from their lives. And thousands of people were tuning in. Thousands!
So I thought to myself, well I have a moderately functional camera. I have a tripod. And I have access to student pricing on Adobe Creative Cloud (which incidentally I do in fact use for editing figures for work) and so I have all the power of Premier Pro at my disposal, and the will to use it. In addition, I've watched enough youtube to have ideas about how I would want to edit and create videos. Finally, here in the world of yarn, is something I am comfortable enough to talk into the camera about.
So I've been filming a spinning vlog each day of the Tour De Fleece, and am now in the process of editing and uploading everything. So if you have any interest in taking a gander, you can watch the video above.
Which brings me back around to.....
4. Writer's block.... for video creation.
Because holy crap YouTube is addictive, you get the ball rolling. You post a couple videos, people start watching them. You get some likes, you watch you subscribers start to go up, and you just see the potential for more. You begin to carry around a notebook for all of the many ideas for videos you could make. And suddenly you run the risk of being so full of ideas that you actually fail to create them.
But so far I've still been filming, and some of what I've filmed so far is intending for right here on this blog! So get ready to see some great content here in the very near future.
So you can subscribe to my channel to see these video as soon as they are uploaded.
Or (much life with my separate blog for yarn stuffs) you can subscribe to my yarn lab channel for everything fibre related.
Cheers!
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