For the first time since I started blogging over three years ago, I’ve lost my routine.
The last month has been a bit erratic here. I’ve always been religious about my blogging schedule, only missing a post very occasionally. I even schedule my content ahead of time when I’m going to be away.
But after struggling with my motivation for several months, the last few weeks I’ve dropped posts all over the place. And I haven’t even felt bad about it.
Mostly, I’ve been absent because my energy has been directed elsewhere. I started a new job in November and I’ve been putting a lot of work into it, so I haven’t had the mental capacity to write much in my spare time, or come up with ideas. I didn’t want to write filler content just for the sake of it.
The truth is my heart isn’t in blogging in the way it used to be. I’m not passionate about coming up with ideas, and it’s hard to find new things to talk about.
But the more I thought about it, I realised that the problem was me, and my life. It’s not that my interests have changed; it’s that I haven’t changed enough.
I’ve written endless posts about starting out as a writer, about learning to identify as such instead of always using the word ‘aspiring’. I’ve written about finding inspiration, motivation and determination. I’ve written about ideas and getting through the editing process.
I wrote about those things because they reflected the place I was at in my life. But it’s a place I’ve been at for a long time. I’ve written a lot in the last couple of years: I’ve finished a novel and won an award. But I’m not really further forward. I’m not close to being published, or moving into another area of life as a writer that I might want to talk about here.
So the ideas have dried up.
I don’t want to rehash the same things over and over. Detailed how-to guides and book reviews are fine occasionally, but they aren’t things I want to focus on regularly.
So I’m drifting. I need a change, something new to grab my interest.
I’ve known it for a while, but I’ve struggled to make it happen. I’ll probably continue to struggle.
But I will keep writing.
I haven’t been the best blogger recently. I’m not great at self-promotion on a good day, but I’ve been especially bad, sometimes not even bothering to share my posts, while everyone else seems to be hammering out the latest SEO strategy, or optimising for Pinterest, or starting YouTube and Periscope channels.
And that makes me feel bad.
But deep down I know I made the choice not to blog that way.
I split my attention between various creative projects and I just can’t do it all.
So while I’m figuring things out, I may be here less, or there may be no difference. I don’t know how it will work out. But I’m thinking it through, slowly.
Caspette says
I wouldn’t feel bad. I blog for me generally and to have discussions about books not to promote myself or have a job out of it. Like you in the last couple of years my blogging interest has waned due to other commitments and newer avenues to discuss books (Twitter, Facebook and Goodreads). But I find these days I’m not really interested in writing reviews or being creative about them. But I keep my toe in the water and do reviews every now and then.
Hope your new job is going well and your other interests pan out. I think it’s fa tactic you wrote a novel and won an award! Hopefully you can do something with that and push forward (self publish maybe?).
Amy Lord says
Thanks for the kind words, I’m definitely hoping to get somewhere with the novel but there’s still a lot of work to be done!