Blog fatigue?

Recently I have heard more than one wine blogger complain that he/she was tired of keeping up with a blog.  It's hard to dream up new topics, and simply reviewing wines becomes a bit boring for most of us.  You could take a long list of adjectives and of fruits and flavorings and scramble them up and there you have your review, or so it can seem.

One well-known blogger I met the other day told me that he was getting sick of the level of discourse on a lot of the blogs and on the message boards, forums, etc.  "It keeps going down."  No civility, no rationality.  I guess this is what happens when you watch cable news and listen to talk radio all the time. 

The sheer amount of time and effort to keep a blog going is also a downer for people.  A wine producer in Italy told me she was thinking about starting a blog, news about her zone and doings at the winery -- the usual inside look at the life of a vigneron.  "How much time do you spend on your blog?" she asked.  I told her about 20 hours a week.  Even more when my meds are off and I can't budge from my chair.

That did it.  No blog coming out of that winery, even if the lady's son did all the work of putting it together.  They all have far too much to do.

I can't blame them for their decision.  But what do you think about the fatigue that so many wine bloggers seem to be facing now?  What are the real causes, do you think?  And what are the antidotes?

Please weigh in.  I think a lot of us would be eager to hear your thoughts.

Comments

[fredric koeppel]

Try having a wine blog AND a wine website and a full-time job as a journalist and five dogs and three cats. And a 23-year-old car. what a bunch of wimps!

[Dr. Debs]

Terry, I think blog fatigue is like writer's fatigue. Everybody who writes gets it. The only antidote is to stop writing. It will take a minimum of 4 days before you stop thinking you should be writing. Wait until after that. Then start relaxing into NOT writing. Take walks. Eat out with friends. See movies. Go to a museum. Then, out of the blue, you will think "I gotta write about THAT." And you will. Until then, post a "Gone Fishing" sign on the blog.

Meanwhile, Fred and I, with our multiple pets and very old cars, will keep sludging along while being hugely envious of your sanity!

Here's the thing: writing is really, really hard. I know, because I do it for a living. I am enormously fortunate because I find writing the blog is recreational when compared to the writing I coulda/woulda/shoulda do. But I suspect that this puts me in a small minority (with Fred. which is pretty good company!). The reason I think so many bloggers are facing fatigue is because they never, ever thought it would be this hard to write day after day, month after month, year after year.

It is. Welcome to our world.

[Luca Risso]

Interesting topic.
It is just my opinion, but if blogging is going to be a fatigue, get off for a while. On the contrary writing a topic should be relaxing. Distressing is due to a mismatch between your expectations and the results you obtain from your blog. As much as I can I try not to have any expectation from what I write. But I’m not a producer, nor a journalist, etc. etc.

Luk

[TH]

Thanks for your comments, folks.

My take on the problem is perhaps a little different from some people's. When I can do nothing else I can write. The writing may be bizarre and/or crummy but it's there.

[Slawka G. Scarso]

Interesting topic indeed!
I went through a blogger's block or blogger's fatigue this winter. For a few months I wrote almost nothing, I just didn't feel like it - the fact that I was writing other things most of the time might have had something to do with this. :)
Luckily, I decided one day that things had to change: I set a decent goal of at least 2 posts each week (instead of the former 4-5 I really couldn't keep up with) and I'm enjoying blogging once again, perhaps even more than before!
So, at least in my case, it was a matter of adjusting the quantity of time and work I dedicate to my blog.

[Dale Cruse]

I wrote about this exact phenomenon recently in a blog post titled, "Where have all the wine bloggers gone?" http://drinksareonme.net/?p=216