Balancing Metaphors

I'm trying to teach myself to balance out the use of metaphors in my writing. I'll set up a visual representation of a concept or theme at the beginning of a story. Sometimes I successfully weave it throughout the story, but most of the time I feel like I'm going back to the same metaphor so many times that it gets repetitive or I'm not repeating the theme enough to make it effective.

I do take comfort in the fact that other writers seem to struggle with the same thing. Reporters and columnists probably use metaphors most effectively, because they write short pieces and refer to the same concept enough times that the reader remembers it without getting tired of the repetition.

Novelists must struggle with metaphors as they write, because they're writing such lengthy pieces that they have to remember to repeat the theme. Then again, their readers have committed to sticking with them for hundreds of pages, so authors have to try not to annoy them by going back to the same literary device over and over again.

But that's life, I guess. We are creatures of habit, so we see the same themes in our personalities and habits every day of our lives. Some people will always struggle with their weight. Others will have trouble staying in relationships for the same reasons each time they go through a breakup.

I suppose I will never figure out what I really want to do and will fall into something that I like for a while just because an opportunity presents itself when I least expect it. That seems to be my pattern. Like this blog, for instance. I started it with no goal other than giving myself a space to write every day. I don't know where this opportunity will take me, but eventually the road will lead me somewhere.