Stage fright?

I wonder if other bloggers encounter blog performance anxiety. Do they become overly critical of their posts? Do they struggle to come up with topics to blog about? Do they feel like they have to outdo themselves at times? I'm sure that the answers are yes, and that it varies depending on the expectations they set for themselves or the scope / nature of their blog. I specifically did not want to keep a diary or a log of "what I did today," so I do try to consider the scope of my blog when I'm writing. (FYI, this post doesn't fit the intended scope of this blog.)

There are tons of of 10-tip articles that give tips for coming up with topics. They generally read like this one, and the tips include anything from exercising to reading a lot to "look deep inside yourself."

But I'm already doing a lot of stuff on the list (but I don't want oops, I mean look deep). I make a note of questions, experiences, conversations, passages in novels and record any potential topics as a draft post or in a Google Doc. I have a few topics in both places, but my problem is that I'm not inspired to write about any of them tonight. I truly believe that action inspires motivation (as opposed to action requiring motivation), but what do other casual bloggers do when they are inspired to do other things besides blog? Conflicting desires is not new to me, of course, but it is new to me when it comes to blogging. It's not like my livelihood depends upon Oranges and Peaches, and the original intent was for it to be a fun, casual creative outlet rather than an obligation. But I also want to post regularly.

I could just *not* post tonight. Problogger suggests that I should just walk away when posts aren't working. I spent a good hour tonight watching Elvis videos on YouTube, and then spent another half an hour trying to figure out if I could cleverly disguise my life-long crush on The King while simultaneously working it into a witty and clever post. (I tried. It didn't work. Sadly, answering the question "Did Elvis experience stage fright?" does not a blog post make.)

I do take comfort in that even the 'pro' bloggers stress out about coming up with killer content, but I think tonight I should have just followed my instinct and gone to bed early to read. Oh well.

(Elvis did experience stage fright, by the way.)