The tyranny of the backlog

As has become a familiar Blaugust story, I have once again let the backlog get ahead of me. In the first week, I managed eight posts, in the second, I only managed five. In this third week, which at this point is more than half-way done already, I've only squeaked out two posts. Last years effort looks remarkably similar, with seven, followed by five, followed by two, and only one post in the final week. 2017 was even worse, with seven, then four, then nothing else for a year. I guess I am nothing if not consistent in my inconsistency. Honestly the remarkable thing is that there were ever years like my golden age of blogging from 2014 to 2016 in which I managed to keep the pump primed all month.

While I hadn't intended to keep up daily posting when planning for this blogging festival, there's a reason that I start out each Blaugust that way, as I do tend to find that it makes writing a much easier hobby.  Keeping up the daily routine keeps me honest, and for the most part once I've actually brought myself to start a post they've been coming out relatively easily, even though if I was being paid by the word I'd probably go hungry. Once I've had a day without posting at all then finding the time and motivation to write quickly becomes extremely haphazard and I'm much more likely to just let it slide again once there's no chance of winning Belghast's shiny trophy for that Blaugustines that manage 31 posts for the month.

Blogging in the comfort of the common room, with a cup of coffee close to hand.

So for the rest of the month I'm going to try writing first thing in the morning -when I wake up, anyways, sometimes that's still morning- instead of leaving it until later on as has been by habit so far. I'll have to put a time limit on my writing time so that it doesn't take up the whole day, which will hopefully enforce a little more structure on what has otherwise been a pretty free-form activity. Hopefully that will leave me time each afternoon to do the actually important stuff like packing up our house while I'm properly awake, as well as leaving more time in the evenings for catching up with all of the Oxfordians that we need to say goodbye to before we clear out of here. If I have free evenings, I am going to try to catch up a little bit of this backlog by posting a second time here and there, but looking at the schedule I'm thinking those days are going to be few and far between. 

Wish me luck!