Never write a blog announcing your big new plan

I would estimate that somewhere around 98% of the content on the internet is blogs that sound something like this:

Hey friends, sorry I haven’t been updating lately. But now I’ve decided that I’m going to challenge myself to reach a reasonable but ambitious goal in fitness, spirituality, the arts, finance, or some other realm of personal achievement. I’m going to do this by performing a specific task or ritual at a set frequency for a timeframe!

I’ve done a million blogs like that. I just did another #illustrationaday and that’s a version of the same story. I drafted a version of that blog for weight loss too. I’ve even got a gang of fat naked selfies on my iPhone ready to go for that one.

I’m down 20 pounds, by the way. Maybe I’ll get around to writing that one when I hit 30 pounds. That’s the first goal— that’ll get me back below 200 pounds.

But I digress.

Before I started losing weight, I recorded a few episodes of a podcast to review my experience with TRT in real time. That’s going great too, and I don’t think a podcast would have helped that process, and I don’t think it would have been a great use of my artistic energy.

But there was a time when all those ideas took root in my head and set my wild heart on fire.

I’m a slut for big new plans.

The holy moment of creation is the best part of any plan. The moment an idea pushes into the world for the first time is magic. But then comes the hard part: getting shit done.

The reality is that if 98% of the content on the internet is “big new plan” blogs, 98% of those never go anywhere. One or two early blogs, then sporadic updates, then a long lull. Then, a big new plan that will change everything this time.

Rinse, wash, repeat.

So here’s my big new plan:

I’m going to challenge myself to grow my creative and professional skills in blogging. To do this, I am going to do this by seeing how many blogs I can write in the next 30 days.

I’ve got some big juicy ones in my drafts queue that I’ve been meaning to get out, but I’m also going to fire off short commentary bits like you might see on Barstool Sports.

I namedrop Barstool a lot because my ultimate goal is to grow bomcgee.com into something that might be comparable to Barstool Arts. I want to put my pop art and illustration at the middle, then build a whole package of blog, video, and podcast content around it. I enjoy making content, and it’s been a really effective way to market my art. When people engage with my content, they build a relationship with my art that makes them more likely to buy.

So this process should help me get a little better at the mechanics of blogging just by getting more reps in than usual. I’m working today on making these blogs push as far as possible through every social channel I can. The goal is to automate the mechanics of the blog as much as possible, so every time I hit “publish” I’m getting to my max audience.

I’m also working on a great big blog about Barry’s World, the greatest story I never told. I’m excited about that one, it’s a great piece of art that I’ve never shared before.

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