This’ll be my last blog for the foreseeable future. Two reasons for this.
1. Time Seems like I’m at an all time low on free time, which may or may not be true. Could be that changes in my life over the years have altered how I use my free time. Same amount of free time, just used differently with not much left over to concentrate on blogging. I don’t know.
I don’t write posts fast, either. It’s rare I spit out a coherent post in one shot. Usually, I write down some thoughts and rework them until I have a readable post. When it’s all said and done, it’s probably the one and only thing I’ll get done in an evening. Maybe two evenings if the post needs extra sprucing. But since I’m only posting weekly (at least trying to) this shouldn’t be that bad if I want to keep blogging. This brings me to reason two:
2. Interest It’s pretty much gone. My motivation to blog was initially a desire to build a following to help me sell my books once I started publishing. It was fun to do, but some weeks I’d be struggling to think of something to talk about. I know many you guys have told me you like everything I talk about and I love that. But there are plenty of posts I’ve scrapped because they had zero substance. The fact that the stuff I post is well received tells me my instincts are pretty good for what to post.
Anyway . . .
At some point, I came to the conclusion that the only way to build a book following was to write good books. Blogging and social media does give you a presence and helps you make friends, but, in my opinion, it’s not how your books are sold. It might be how you get interest in your books, but if they’re no good, all that time spent blogging was kind of a waste. At least in terms of getting book readers. For other things like fun, making friends and finding a writing voice, it’s great. If you have the time.
In my case, it became clearer and clearer that I could only focus on blogging OR writing. No fifty-fifty split and certainly nothing where I concentrated on one with intensity and the other when I could get to it. This is when my interest started to dwindle. I thought shifting my focus to writing whatever I felt like would help, but it was just a band aid. The Dwindle bus continued on to Quitsville.
And now we come to today where I say goodbye to blogging. Maybe not forever, but for a while. I could be shooting myself in the foot with my social media presence, but it’s kind of pointless to me if I don’t write. Because the passion for writing hasn’t dwindled.
I want to publish my fiction. I really do.
And not just for me, because my time on this blog hasn’t been a total waste. It’s been a wonderful learning experience which has lead to meeting some awesome people who are now my friends. It’s you happy few I’m writing for. I hope you like what I come up with. I hope you can’t wait to find out what happens next. And if you tell a friend about me, well, that’s a nice bonus.
So, please excuse me while I go write some fiction.
