Seventeen months ago, I was a blogging virgin. I didn’t know what to expect, if it would pick up, if I would enjoy it, if others would enjoy and follow what I wrote about, or if I could stick to it. 284 posts later, I obviously stuck to it, but I have been doing something that I’ve sworn up and down I would not do – I’ve been thinking about my blog’s direction – what it’s about, and I’m really tempted to make some changes. My blog has evolved and as much as I prided myself on having a blog that did not fit into a niche and was a little bit of everything, I realize that’s not entirely true. My blog is conjoined twins – two clear and individual entities fused together and functioning as one. But I think it would be better, for me and my blog, if I just made the cut already, splitting them up and seeing how they do as separate entities.
When I started this blog, I wanted to write four posts per week. It was to make sure that I kept writing, and not just random things like journaling – often enough to flex some writing muscles and get into a routine. But as opinionated as I thought I was, I didn’t have enough things to write about, so my love of books became a trusty go-to. And I used it – a lot. Pretty soon, half of my blog was book reviews, from new and notable literature to all-time favorites to guilty pleasure reads – it was books, books, books. And the other half of my blog was everything else: writing, craft, home and family stuff, personal posts I surprised myself by writing (I am not a person who typically “shares”), current events, opinion pieces, and a lot of posts about being deaf or some of my other medical issues. Usually my “other” blog posts are introspective or about relationships, and then I have some travel and TV blogs for good measure. So to say there has been a variety is an understatement. But I think the variety would be less jarring if I didn’t have a post about my abusive childhood followed by a Sweet Valley High – Guilty Pleasure reading post. I mean, seriously…
While I have given this a lot of thought over the last few weeks, and I know it’s right, I am still trying to figure out just what my new blog should include, what to move over and then the logistics of moving said material over. I know the new blog will be books, which means all of my book review and guilty pleasure posts will be on my new page, and any future book reviews and guilty pleasure posts will only be posted on my new blog site, rather than on this one. But what else do I include, if anything? Should I include any reviews including TV shows and movies? Or should I stick to a literary theme and move all of my posts about writing and publishing instead? What’s the better fit? I’m still trying to figure that out, among other things, even though I’m hoping to finish the new site and move everything over by July 1. It’s kind of a tall order, but it’s halfway through the year, so it seems like a good time to get it done.
I’m not going to be writing more, I have my hands full with four posts every week, but that means I’ll be posting less on this blog because my posts will be divided between two blogs. I’m not doing four each, I’m not even doing three each – screw that. I’m going to write four posts per week, and some weeks perhaps it’s two posts per blog, sometimes maybe I’ll do three book reviews and one personal or vice versa, but the nice thing is now I’ll just post when I have something worth blogging about and I won’t just post something for the sake of posting something on a scheduled “blog day.” A lot of the blogs I follow and read only post one to three times per week, so I know that at four posts, my blog was fairly predictable, but also almost to the point of spamming people’s inboxes. So, as a kind of positive side effect, these posts will be less frequent, and my new blog site will never be as much as four posts per week – I mean that’s a lot!
I’m excited for this next chapter in blogging, but I still am lost on what other posts to move with my book reviews. So, please let me know your thoughts: Should the new blog be all reviews of any medium and that’s it, or should it be literary and be about reading and writing, but the only reviews will be about books. Thoughts? I can’t make up my mind, and I really need to soon! :/
-DMW
