It’s like I feel this compulsion to do the occasional reset on my blog and what/when I choose to write.  Though I suspect that this time it’s more about this pinch of guilt that I feel because I haven’t been blogging even close to regularly lately. (See the Hugh Macleod cartoon)

I’ve had my blog since 2005.  During the first four years of it, I was putting up, on average, two novels worth of words a year on my blog.  I know that in the last two, I haven’t put up quite those numbers, this year especially.  Back when I used to blog a few times a day—A DAY!!!—part of my motivation for blogging was building an audience as my stories were in circulation and hadn’t found homes yet.  But I wanted folks who knew me to have something to read.  There were a lot less bloggers then and it was easier to cut through the noise and build a platform.

Blogging was part of my writing discipline back then and I think that’s the key word:  discipline.  I still have a file folder with a few dozen sketched out blogs from back when I was blogging consistently (because there always had to be a new blog/content).  It had become a habit (for a while, I’d dare say an addiction…a few times A DAY!), but like any other habit, it can be lost when you take a break from it.  There was a lot of overthinking stuff:  do I have anything to say?  Do I feel like offering commentary on the issues of the day?  Does anyone care if I say (or don’t say) anything?

And I was tired.

Writing takes energy, time, commitment and discipline.  But your creative mind is like a muscle:  there’s only so much in it for any given workout.  As the deadlines have increased, not to mention the schedules that come with simply living life, time for words have to be allocated.  Carved out.  And that precious time, and the bulk of that muscle’s workout, goes into projects.  I’m not upset by that (though maybe mildly angsty).

So for the foreseeable future, my blogging will come in bursts.  When the time and ideas hit me, when I have reviews to do, and probably either between writing projects (or when I need breaks from them).  It’s become far from a daily routine anymore, so there won’t be nearly as much commentary on the day’s events (look, I’ve missed entire wars and natural disasters by keeping my head down and working on projects to make my deadlines).

At least that’s the way I see it today.  I could turn over a whole new blogging leaf and suddenly start blogging a few times a day next week.  I doubt it though.  Not with a couple of new books due.