Random Thursday: I Feel a Change Coming On

[hrj]

Originally published at Alpennia.com. You can comment here or there.

To date, in 2016 I have posted 333 separate blog entries (in the early part of the year on Live Journal, and then both on Alpennia.com and LJ). My goal was to blog every weekday, and while I missed some calendar days, I clearly over-shot that target in terms of total posts. As I've mentioned in a couple of recent round-up posts, I've been pondering exactly why I've pursued such a rigorous schedule and what I'm getting out of it.

Let me be bluntly honest: I took on such an ambitious schedule in the hopes of building a larger "presence" online. I've been trying to establish my blog (in whichever of its incarntions) as a "happening place" that provided useful information, interesting discussions, and entertaining ideas. It seemed worth a shot, given that I enjoy writing and never seem to run out of ideas. But it's still been a fairly grueling standard to maintain. And I don't think that what I was trying to achieve is actually achievable anymore in today's cyberspace. People don't go to blogs for community or interaction any more. I'll get a bunch of traffic for specific items, but it's tourist traffic.

I don't typically make serious New Year's Resolutions, but I'll make an exception. In 2017, I'm going to stop doing things just to try to impress people who don’t actually care. And one of those things is blogging five days a week.

So what do I plan to do with this blog? The projects that I'm doing for myself. Obviously I'm going to keep working on the Lesbian Historic Motif Project. Because even though other people don't care about the Project, it underpins most of my fiction. And I'm going to keep processing Abiel LaForge's diaries, because it's a family heritage thing. And I'll keep posting the occasional review, though I give myself permission not to review everything. And when I have something new and different to say about my fiction projects, I'll post about that too. But not every week.

In fact, I'm planning to set up something different for news and announcements about the fiction. I've been looking into doing an email newsletter, so if you find that interesting, keep your eyes peeled for further information.

I know this post sounds like a bit of a downer, but it's really just a reassessment. What I was doing wasn't getting the return on investment that I needed to make it worth while to continue at that pace. And that investment was taking time and energy away from things that might produce a better return. Like writing stories.

Comments

[hrj.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's always the quandary: it isn't that blogging so often had *no* impact, just that it didn't have the impact I needed to keep going. And on the down side, having that schedule inspired me to come up with some posts that turned out to be popular that I might not have written otherwise.

A certain part of the problem is the emotional toll of feeling like I'm talking to empty air. Even when the air isn't entirely empty, it's too thin to breathe.