I have always said to people who asked me, “Do I need to have a blog?”: Certainly not. It must fit your goals, your time and your resources. And let’s face it. Sometimes things a little more important get in the way. It could be your health or a family crisis or a million other things. Or it might be that you are in the middle of a major career change and it’s hard to focus right now.
The same may be said for writers who take a break from blogging. Because we all know that stuff happens. Whatever our reason for taking a hiatus, we have a tremendous opportunity to learn and grow from the experience. A little introspection, or as critics of memoir call it, navel-gazing, can help us define and refine our writer selves.
The Perfect Storm: When Relaunching a Blog Makes Sense
Bloggers stop blogging and return to it more often than you would think. But how do you know whether and when to plunge back in the waters? It’s a personal decision of course; the answer won’t be the same for everyone. But here are a few questions to start your thinking:
• Do you still enjoy blogging? Because it’s a commitment and if your heart isn’t in it, your content will reflect that.
• Has your focus changed? You should at least know why you are restarting and what you aim to accomplish with your blog.
• Has your target audience changed or have you added a second one? You should be clear on who you are writing for.
• Can you keep a blog regularly updated? Once you establish a schedule, your reader will come to expect posts from you on certain days. Don’t disappoint them.
So Why Did I Relaunch My Blog?
The journey to publication can be a long one for new writers, with many a twist, and turn and along the path. Quite a few of you have been traveling with me on this adventure, have sent words of encouragement, left inspiring comments, on this blog, on Twitter and on my Facebook author page. For that, I am immensely grateful.
There have been ups and downs along the way: mistakes made and lessons learned. In moving for memoir format to novel, I have had both the liberty and the profound pleasure of digging into my characters—what they do, how they think—in much greater depth. It also puts the focus squarely where it belongs: on exploring how the past impacts the present and how the roots of a repressive childhood can be deep and tangled.
In these ways, writing this book has truly been life-changing. And now I want to share what I have learned with you. I will be blogging about the craft of writing, the art of blogging and, of course, my upcoming novel, The Bark Peeler’s Daughter. If you are curious, you can see the movie trailer version of my book here. There will also be inspirational posts sprinkled here and there on the blog. (We all need words of encouragement every once in a while!)
I hope that my story resonates with you, dear readers, and that you will stay with me as I share with you on this blog my head-earned lessons and insights about writing, life and the evolution of a novel in real time.
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