Tomorrow for Bloggiesta's Twitter chat, I'll be hosting a conversation about pushing through the blogging slumps. Please join us even if you aren't participating in Bloggiesta! I want to have a fun and energetic discussion about this since I know many of us are suffering!
To get you thinking, I thought I'd start the discussion right here right now!
This past week I've reached my 11th year of blogging... well, book blogging that is. I had another blog for a year before that which eventually died when the book blog became the main place. So let's say 12 years. Many of you have blogged for even longer, I know. During all this time, I never thought I'd get tired of it. I figured I could talk about books forever and ever! I also never thought new and exciting other passions would take over.
Well, so about two years ago all those things I thought would never happen, happened.
1. I didn't have much more to say about books and reading. For instance I felt like all the topics from Top Ten Tuesday I'd done a thousand times already. And I couldn't think of any new discussion posts on my own to throw out here either.
2. A new passion entered my life and that's all I wanted to talk about. Books suddenly took a back seat.
3. Which meant I wasn't reading as much so I didn't really have anything to review either.
4. Life just continues to get more and more complicated...having kids get older just makes things harder even than when they were younger. Just sayin'.
So between all these things, the blog suffered. But I was determined to not let it end. But, I figured that blogging isn't a matter of life and death and that it would wait for me to figure things out. So this is what I told myself:
1. You don't have to blog every day. (I had nearly been doing this for all the years.)
2. You don't have to blog only about books.(While I hadn't totally been doing this already, it was still mostly "all about books".) And since there was a new passion, who says I can't just start blogging about that?
3. Blogging is for fun and you can take breaks and then come back. No one is going to freak out.
4. Speaking of freaking out, the real blogging buddies will stick through the slumps with you. So hopefully worry about losing followers and such is not a thing.
It was painful though for a good long while. I felt guilty skipping days, then weeks. And almost months. I felt guilty talking about things besides books, knowing that people that came here to read and check in expected the discussion to be about books. I felt tired and lethargic just thinking about sitting down and writing something to post. I felt like everything was boring with regard to the blog.
It's been a sad time.
And I'm not totally sure it's over. But I feel like that after more than two years of slumping, I can see the light again, for this blog. I feel more energetic again. I'm reading more again. I'm not caring so much about what I post and telling myself that it's my blog and I can post whatever I want on it. I can change it's direction throughout it's lifetime as much as I want and as often as I want. I can try to recruit new readers that match that new content. Or not. And, I can have readers and followers that enjoy some or all of things I do.And so it's all okay.
So at this point, I don't see the blog ending anytime soon. But I can't promise anything about what the future holds for it! Who knows what direction it will take? The possibilities are endless!
And now I want to know:
What struggles have you had with blogging? Have you gone through some of the same issues and thought processes that I have? Do you get blog guilt sometimes and feel like you owe people something? Let me know how you've struggled and how you've gotten through it! Or if you still are suffering, let me know what's up and how we as a community can help!
Comment here, and/or if you can, please join us tomorrow at 8 PM EDT on Twitter (#Bloggiesta) to talk more and see what others have to say!
I keep going back and forth on whether or not to just give up blogging all together. Maybe I should join your discussion tomorrow. I’m in a slump.
ReplyDeleteJenny: did you like the discussion? Not sure anyone had that great of advice for you. I for one, hope you keep it going.. even if it's sporadic and maybe less about books and more about whatever else you have going on!
DeleteI've had slumps a lot over the years. I think the thing that helped most was getting myself to accept that blogging is a hobby, numbers don't matter, and I can blog and read as much or as little as I want. I'll go through periods where I don't blog much, and then I'll go through spurts where everything is exciting again. And if I start slumping for too long, I'll sign up for a blog tour a few months in advance to make sure that I do come back.
ReplyDeleteGrace: Great advice! I've decided I like having a place where I can just gush words out about whatever and people can choose to read it or not... subscribe or not... whatever goes. But I need that place still....
DeleteBlogging is sometimes hard, but it can be worth it. I had to put it down for almost a year before my passion came back. I still have days where I think, "Why am I still doing this?" But, I really enjoy having my own space on the Internet. Sometimes, you just have to decide what's important and be okay with what you're able to do and what you can do, meaning like you said, it's okay not to blog everything or about books all the time.
ReplyDeleteJenni: The thing about having a space is huge for me too. I still enjoy that and so this blog is still here, even if it's changed a bit. And changing a bit is good, even if it's a little weird and scary. Yes? YES!
DeleteYep, I could have written this. I'm still reading but not at the pace I once was. I've been doing a lot of other things instead. I do still want to keep my blog though. I had a mini panic attack a minute ago when I signed in and Blogger told me I had no blogs! But I found it.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if I feel I owe anyone anything. I think I probably lost all my readers by now.
Chris! Long time no see! :) I'm glad you plan to keep the blog. I'm always so sad when people quit. I bet you have more readers still checking in on you then you think. I always joke that I have two readers... my two in real life Jenny/Jenni friends who are the best commenters ever. :) But I'm told a few others are still here reading too. LOL!
DeleteThe thing that has always been a problem for me when it comes to blogging is that I mostly blog about tv shows but most of my followers are book bloggers so it can be a struggle to connect those two interest together, at times I feel like I'm trying to sell followers on the shows I'm watching. I also sometimes have a tendency to loose motivation for blogging from time to time since I often don't feel like people are reading my posts since people don't usually comment on my posts and the comments are honestly one of the reasons I like doing the Top 10 Tuesday posts so much because it lets me feel like I'm actually part of the blogging community.
ReplyDeleteI often times feel like I have to find a way to talk about books on my blog because that's why the majority of my followers follow me but I don't really let that control what I talk about on my blog because at the end of the day my blog is about what I have the most to say about the things I enjoy and that often times is about tv shows or kdramas or anime.
I'm curious if you'll ever write any discussion posts about kdramas in the future since there could be a lot of different topics to talk about there and I think that sounds like a lot of fun, I've actually thought about writing some kind of essays about certain things in kdrama but decided against doing them because I have no idea what to call those posts. Also I'm wondering if you're still watching I Hear Your Voice and if you're enjoying it and how far you are in the series.
Lilly: You need to somehow find followers that are more into the TV shows! I don't know how though...there must a be community for that like there is for book blogging. I'm still trying to figure out how to get more drama watchers like you to find my blog. Definitely not as easy as finding book lovers! Anyway, I hope you just keep reviewing and talking about whatever it is you are liking and watching! Don't worry too much about everyone! (This is what I tell myself all the time!) As for doing more discussion posts on kdramas...I would love to! we should brainstorm together and make it be a collab project. Yes? And yes to I Hear Your Voice... I'm almost done. Just a handful of episodes left. I'm getting a bit bogged down by all the courtroom drama as that's not much my thing. But I'm loving Lee Song Juk and I'm dying over his cuteness. Anyway, despite all the courtroom scenes, i'm very invested on the story and am anxious to see it all resolved!
DeleteI think one of the main problems with finding an audience when reviewing tv shows is that there are already so many professional critics that do it and their reviews fill up the first couple pages when you search for episode reviews so by the time one of my reviews show up chances are the person has already read more than enough reviews on the episode and really don't feel like reading another one. I also think that there isn't one centralize fandom blogging community that connects tv fans with each other like there is for book bloggers which is why memes like Top 10 Tuesday and such are such an important thing since it connects book bloggers together and gives them a community that doesn't seem to exist for TV at least not on blogger maybe on tumblr or youtube but I wouldn't post reviews on either of those sites.
ReplyDeleteI think that a way that you might be able to find more kdrama fans is if you made an account on mydramalist and linked the reviews you write to your profile on that site, mydramalist is kind of similar to goodreads so I think you'd find it easy to use. I would love to make a collab project for Kdrama discussion that sounds really fun, the two ideas that I thought about seriously had to do with the "we use to be friends" trope that I kept encountering for awhile in dramas(School 2013, The Heirs, Cheese in the Trap and Suspicious Partner) and then the second had to do with comparing the tropes from I Believe in a Thing Called Love to the dramas I watched. I'm open to pretty much making a post about anything regarding kdramas but I thought I share some ideas that I've had here.
I'm so happy to hear that you're enjoying the show and the last two episodes of the show have little to no courtroom scenes so it shouldn't be too hard to finish the series once you get to episode 17 and really after the end of episode 16 you're going to want to watch the next episode right away. This drama is the one that made me fall in love with Lee Jong suk so I couldn't agree more that his cuteness is to die for. This show was one that made me anxious all the way through but that's why I loved it so much.
I went through a similar thing after having my daughter two years ago. I didn't have the time or the energy to blog. I feel like I've gotten my mojo back a bit now. You're right that you can of course change the direction of your blog whenever you like. After blogging for nine years, mine is quite mixed now. I mostly blog about books but also about writing, art, travel and lifestyle topics.
ReplyDelete