It’s been almost two months since my last blog post. In that time it’s been hard to find my purpose for posting. Over my eight years of blogging, I’ve focused on two main reasons for writing on this page, and both reasons have been failing me lately.

Reason One: I blog because I have something to say. I almost always have something to say, but lately I’ve been “saving” these ideas for a platform other than the blog– the Perspective Post newsletter, for example, or a short memoir piece for literary journals. I haven’t been blogging lately because I haven’t found things that I wanted to say in this format. 

Reason Two: I blog to find my audience. I have found an audience: you! But I’d like that audience to be bigger. I’d love to have more reach, especially when I start promoting my novel. The problem is that blogging itself doesn’t do much for adding fans or subscribers. I also need to promote the posts, and have other people share them. I need to do the networking alongside creating the content. I’ve learned a lot about effective online networking. But it does take time. I might have time to blog, or to write something for Facebook, but I don’t typically have both. Choosing between the two tends to stall me.

Neither of my reasons has been working for me, and that’s why I haven’t been blogging for the past few months. But I think I uncovered my third reason, one I’ve had to discover and re-discover multiple times.

Reason Three: I blog to create. 

All those ideas I mentioned earlier, the ones I’m saving? I keep writing them down, starting files, and not finishing them. Why? Because I’m not in the habit of developing them right now. What’s the point of ideas if my creating switch is off?

I don’t know why I have to keep learning this lesson: creating leads to more creating. Especially if I’m in the editing stage of my novel, which uses entirely different muscles than drafting, I need another creative outlet. And here it is, ready-made. My blog. The format that’s supposed to capture that stream-of-consciousness, developing-idea work.

So I’m pledging to focus on the blog in October, because I’ve learned (again) that blogging is a keystone writing habit for me. If I’m blogging, my creativity is flowing elsewhere, too. And there’s nothing that makes me happier and more productive than being creative.

Potential Roadblocks

My best time for blogging is in the evening, since I need mornings to edit my novel. Unfortunately, evening is also my reading time. I’m going to try reading more during lunchtime instead, and keeping my Kindle loaded for on-the-go reading, so I don’t feel like I’m sacrificing too much of that time. Hopefully a change in habit will spur growth.

I’m excited to spend more of my free time creating instead of solely absorbing other people’s creations. Hello again, world!