Project 52 was born out of an insane desire to actually make regular blog updates. (Who does that? I don’t know a single person who does that in real life). And like the special cookie I am, I decided that the challenge would be worth a shot. The second purpose behind P52 was to improve my writing skills through the diligence and dedication of consistent updates.

So far?

Near total failure.

Instead of motivating me to write, I’m shirking my duties because the looming deadline is counterproductive to my creative juices. And instead of forcing me to dish out high-calibre work weekly, it’s making me serve crappy, low-quality writing that I wouldn’t even want to read in a tabloid magazine. Project 52 would pretty much be considered a wasted effort, except – what was it Edison said? – I may have failed a thousand times before learning the right way to maintain a blog, but I learned one thousand ways not to maintain one.

Which is basically a ridiculously circuitous way of saying that I learned more from trying and failing and trying and half-assing than I would have from just doing nothing. The mere fact that I pushed myself to get an update out every week – the mind-numbing searches for content, the depressing site statistics, the rare and priceless feedback – has given me so many lessons. What’s that oft used expression?

Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other.

I’m nobody’s fool (for very long anyway), but there are some things you have to learn the hard way, and blogging is one of them. For me, at least.

So I’m not quite ready to give up on P52 just yet. Here’s to entry #25 and 27 more weeks of trying to get it right.