2025 01 01

Coming or going? Somewhere south of Rockford, Illinois. February, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

Becoming a Daily Blogger in 2025

Today marks the successful completion of a full year of daily blogging!

Five days. Five, damn, days. At the time, I didn’t care that I missed posting to this here blog for five days because I was busy getting married. That clearly takes priority to casual blog posting, which goes almost completely unnoticed. Now, looking back from the comfort of a new calendar year, I see it as a failure of my objective! Perhaps because I live in the United States and we tend to see things as all or nothing. Perhaps because I don’t have my priorities in order. Perhaps because my standards are so high I consider it a complete failure to only get 98.6% of the way towards reaching my goal. Whatever the reason, when I noticed this five day gap (I’d completely forgotten about it because, you know, it doesn’t really matter) I was furious with myself. Why hadn’t I anticipated and pre-loaded blog posts? Should I now “punish” myself, start the timer over, and do it all over again this year?

Let’s be honest, I probably don’t need to be sharing any old thought I have on the internet anymore. That said, I’ve made it clear from day one that the entire point of this here blog is for me, myself, and I. I’m doing this to improve my own writing skills, photo editing skills, and to think through various subjects. The fact that I am doing it publicly is a byproduct and not the main motivator, but it’s also a way to keep me honest and put pressure on myself to continue to show up. It’s how my brain works. 

As an example, I was doing my “morning pages” quite regularly for months after reading The Artist’s Way. This was super helpful, however, as soon as I got busy with other shit (like getting married) I completely cut out this habit without even realizing I had done so. In a way, this here blog is my own version of the morning pages. It’s my version of therapy and it gives me a chance to think. Hopefully it does more good than harm when it comes to my reputation and people reading my business! 

One quick story about a proud moment that justified the time I’ve dedicated to this here blog: I lost a big job we bid on this fall. We lost it, but we almost won it! This may sound insane but I was almost as happy by how close we came to being awarded the project as I would’ve been had we actually been awarded the project. If you’re in the biz, you know about these calls you have with the client and/or agency leading up to bidding on a big project. On this specific call, it became very apparent to me that we had no realistic shot at winning this bid (for a number of reasons, but an obvious one was that all the examples they showed us were images they glowingly described as exactly what they wanted to capture — they were all made by another photographer, whom they’d just worked with, who was also bidding on the project!). My takeaway from the call was that if we had any shot at getting the job, I needed to write a really good treatment.

Either the treatment worked or things changed beyond our control because we got the call that we were favorites for the job. It was all but guaranteed! Then, as happens, things changed again and we didn’t get the job. But I took it as a nice consolation prize and largely credited my habit of writing regularly with being the thing that put us over the top. 

Most likely, in the new year I will tweak my approach a bit. My main priority is to continue the writing. Whatever approach best enables me to do this is how I will go about it. Again, there are days when I simply don’t have the time to jot down something worth reading, and those days probably don’t need a post. Maybe I’ll make it a “photo a day” situation so I can more easily fulfill my lifelong dream of posting to a blog every day for a year (sarcasm?), while keeping the words to days when I do have something more meaningful to share. We’ll see.

Thinking bigger, I often say you need to go to where the people are if you want to see noticeable success, and the people are not hanging out on blogs. If I really wanted to take this project to the next level, a YouTube channel would be the obvious next step. Learning to communicate in video form, versus textually, is a skill that will take you places in this day and age. The reality, however, is that I likely only have the time for a more casual blog, like this here one, that exists mostly as a space for personal growth and exploration. Regardless, I appreciate you being here!

Happy New Year!

-Clayton

This is one entry in a multi-part series of self-exploration and contemplation-out-loud in advance of the new calendar year. Some of this may happen; none of this may happen.
For the complete list of posts, see 2024 12 25.