Lately the motivation to update my blog has been severely lacking. Struggling to figure out why has led me to a few conclusions:
- I've been reading too many other blogs, and now I'm confused about the direction I want mine to take. Do I post endless photos of sunsets and grinning anglers with fish or how about flies and materials or maybe industry news and funny pics or fishing reports or shameless business and personal promotion or how about gear reviews or perhaps articles on technique or maybe profiling other anglers or yada yada yada....
- Time. I lack it.
- #2 leads to #3, not enough fishing.
- Balance. I often wonder if the struggle to find balance in life, between work and play, relationships and personal time, will be an eternal one.
- I can be somewhat self concious at times.
- Obligation. I want to want to do this, and I started feeling like it was something I had to do. All in my own head, no outside pressure, but there just the same.
- I hate competition, and with the explosion of female talent in the fishing world I feel or anticipate comparisons where perhaps there shouldn't be. i.e. I don't want my blog to be compared to Kate's or Hannah's, or have to say for the five hundredth time that I'm not April Vokey's partner and that I'm not a part of Flygal.
- I'm burning out. Not of fishing. But of working in the industry, of being a part of this twisted fishing world. I sometimes think that some of my most amazing times out fishing were before I started working in the shop, before all my friends were anglers, when I knew jack shit about tackle and barely more about what I was really doing out there. When I had no expectations of myself. When I wasn't a part of Facebook and didn't know about forums and Youtube and didn't get phone calls daily ("who's catching fish, on which rock were they standing and how far did they cast what line with which fly and when did they mend and strip and can you drive me to that run and show me how to do it so I don't have to thing about it and then I can go back to my computer and post about it like I'm the expert now?") that make me want to weep.
After all that my final conclusion is that maybe I shouldn't care about anything but myself, not care about the image I portray and just do whatever the hell I want to with this. While I am a "professional" in this industry, my blog is for me first and foremost. I'm not trying to sell anything or convert anyone or promote myself... This is my space, my place, my outlet. You are invited to have a peek at it, and if you don't like it feel free to move on.
And yes, I am in one of those moods.
