Hello, is anyone there?

I’ve been pondering my blog-neglect. I worked so hard on this, why would I abandon it? I’m writing, so why aren’t I posting? I’m not writing, why am I not writing?

I found this today, and it’s very good. And definitely a large part of my problem.

That’s not the whole of it, of course.

Partly, I’ve felt like I can’t write about much that’s happened in the past two years. I can write about the things I’ve done, mistakes I’ve made, pain and joy I’ve felt, but I can’t say anything about anyone else or what they did. That’s frustrating because yes, some of this is my fault, but not all of it. So that’s one part–I’ve always been very open here and now I’m limited to half-truths or less.

Then there’s this: Obviously, I started a blog to share my stories. But somewhere along the way, as I learned more about blogging, writing, social media, submitting to places, sharing, groups of bloggers helping each other, the world of bloggers and editors etc., I stopped writing what I wanted to write. I tried to make my posts more general, to appeal to a broader audience. I tried to organize my writing into the proper bunches of words–three or five paragraphs, TITLE, ending. (Titles are the hardest part of writing for me.) And of course, every post had to have one or more images.

I’ve always abhorred the “technical” side of blogging; code, links, images, sharing.

So I think the combination of all the above, and wanting my work to be perfect (in the eyes of editors and other writers, anyway) helped make telling my stories more of a job than a joy.

I hope you read the piece I linked to; it’s really very good, and explained my feelings before I could put them into words.

I don’t know what this blog will be now or in the future. I know it once brought me joy and a sense of accomplishment and community that I miss.

I also know this isn’t formatted in any way, I haven’t read through it even one time, and…I wrote in on my phone in 10 minutes.

Here’s hoping you’re all as okay as you can be right now.

Going hunting for my muchness.

Steph