I didn’t post at all in February, mostly because I was working on revisions of The Last Crucible, Book 3 of the Reclaimed Earth series, which is now turned in to my editor Don D’Auria at Flame Tree Press. The cover looks beautiful and I’ll reveal that as well as the release date in the coming weeks.
The recent blogging gap did make me reflect on blogging in general. A few factors have pulled me away from posting as much as I used to:
- Sometimes I feel a sense of cognitive dissonance when I read older posts. I started this blog twelve years ago in 2009, and I don’t always agree with my past self, or relate to him emotionally. That sense of dissonance sometimes dissuades me from writing. Whatever I write, some aspect of it will seem foolish or incorrect in the future.
- Generally I feel less sure of myself than I did five or ten years ago. Being a father, experiencing illness and death in the family, and undergoing various personal struggles have humbled me. Many of my past posts offered advice, but who am I to give advice? Every year I’m alive I become more aware of the vast number of things I do not know.
- A few years ago the Google algorithm sharply reduced traffic to any website discussing health issues that wasn’t an accredited medical institution. This makes a lot of sense in terms of reducing the amount of health nonsense on the internet (some of which I’ve written myself). But it did reduce overall traffic to this site significantly, which was discouraging.
- Now that I’m officially a novelist, most of my writing time goes into writing novels.
On the other hand, there are still quite a few positive aspects to blogging:
- This site actually generates income. My friend Rob, who taught me a scalp massage technique that helped me reverse my male-pattern hair loss to a significant degree, decided to offer me a generous commission for a couple blog posts I wrote that link to his site. So that’s nice.
- Writing about whatever is top-of-mind helps me sort out my own thoughts. That’s always been a huge personal benefit of blogging, and that continues to be true.
- It’s useful to have my own place on the internet where I can promote my creative work, moderate comments to my own standards, and publish whatever the hell I like.
So I’m doubling down on blogging. I have to give credit to Steve Pavlina, who published a blog post every single day in 2020, for nudging me in this direction.
My approach to blogging in 2021 will look something like this:
- Schedule a chunk of time most Saturday mornings to write a blog post or posts.
- Write about whatever I have something to say about in that particular moment (less planning, more pantsing).
- As always, try to write something that offers at least some value to the reader. I’ll continue to share whatever I’m experimenting with in my life, what I’m learning, what obstacles I’m facing and how I’m navigating those problems.
- Do my best to put whatever doubts and hesitancy I have about blogging aside, and just keep writing and posting.
This feels doable. Writing a post a week is a reasonable commitment, and I expect the rewards will vastly outweigh whatever time and effort I put in (as they have in the past).
