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!
.jpg)
