So, I've Been Away For A While...

And what did I learn in my year of bloggy abstinence?  A little of this and a little of that.  One of the things about blogging that bothered me a bit was that I felt like it was a hindrance to the actual writing.  I put time and energy into posts that could well have been paid articles or essays, and I knew it.  You can feel the difference between good writing and “meh” and I was putting a lot of good writing into my posts, and not a heck of a lot of “meh”…

One of my favorite blogging writer friends, the awesome Erica Orloff, used to refer to blogging as priming the pump.  It was part of her routine to get the juices flowing.  Of course, she’s also one of the most prolific writers you’ll ever meet.  But I think there was a point to that.  Not that the writing of the posts got my juices flowing so much as the interaction with other writers. 

In one of the Rocky movies (yes, I’m just greaseball enough to quote this), Rocky was not having any luck finding a job and wanted to go back to fighting.  So he went and talked to Mickey (for those of you who never saw the movies because a rock fell on you or something – Mickey was his trainer), who told him there was no way he should go back to boxing.  His eyes were too bad from getting hit.  So Rocky asked for a job sweeping up around the gym, and the old trainer looked at him with his eyes full of pity and tried to talk him out of it.  Saying, “You’re like royalty around there…” and asking how he could walk around with spit buckets for guys who looked up to him like that.  And Rocky said, “I just have to be around it.”

And I think, in a way, that’s what blogging does for me.  It keeps me connected with other writers, which keeps me excited about writing… or at least eases a bit of the black hole you get when no one around you really gets what you’re doing.

So I think it’s time to begin again.  The blog is going through some transformations… because I’ve been through a few and I guess it’s reflective of where my head’s at.  What I’ve been doing is a little different than where I was back when I started this.  The kids are older.  I work full time and still write freelance on the side.  Am I still writing fiction?  I haven’t been as prolific as I want to be.  And that’s one of the things I’m aiming to change.  The difference between now and a year ago is that I realize that blogging was never one of the things holding me back.

We’ll see where it goes from here.  Hopefully, I’ll find some of my blogging circle still active – I know many have found other venues for their online time.  And maybe I’ll meet a few new writers to capture my attention and get me thinking.

If you’re new to these parts, pull up a chair…and a martini… and a sense of humor, because you’ll need one to peruse any of my meanderings.  If you’ve been here before, welcome back.  Happy to take the next leg of the journey with you.