To Blog or Not to Blog? What’s Coming for 2016

Sue Archer

Have you ever wished you could clone yourself, so that you could do everything you wanted to do?

Yep, me too.

This is the longest I’ve ever gone without blogging, and it’s amazing how much I’ve missed it. I’ve missed the fun of challenging myself to write creatively about grammar. I’ve missed the conversations I’ve had in the comments. I’ve missed the joy of discovering wonderful new posts written by my fellow bloggers (because I haven’t had time to read, let alone write).

But I’m happy to have had this break, because I’ve been able to avoid missing other things that are important in my life.

And I’ve come to a realization: With everything I’m trying to do right now, it’s just not possible for me to blog every week any more. In fact, I may only be able to blog once a month sometimes.

And that’s okay.

What do you mean, it's okay? I'm having a genuine Shakespearian crisis over this here...

What do you mean, it’s okay? I’m having a genuine Shakespearean crisis over this here…

Like me, you’ve probably run across a zillion articles that might as well have titles like

Start a Blog or Lose All Hope of Ever Selling Yourself!

Blog Every Day or Google Will Rip You to Shreds and Eat You!

Master Building Your Platform if You Don’t Want to Be That Kid Who’s All Alone At Recess!

What a bunch of hooey. (I love that word!)

I firmly believe that writing good, meaningful content is more important than racing on a writing treadmill to stay at the top of the hit list.

My initial goal in blogging was to share what I know about communication in a fun and informative way. I hope I’ve done some of that.

But I’ve discovered along the way that I have gained another complementary goal in blogging that’s just as important – to read and learn from my fellow bloggers and to share their words with others.

So I’ve decided to make a change in my approach this year. I’m still going to write creative posts about grammar, hold conversations about communication with other writers, and let you know about helpful writing resources. But I’m going to do it less often. I’ll be posting on a Monday if I have a post for the week. I’ll also be writing occasional posts about editing on my editing website.

In parallel, I’m going to make more use of Twitter as a tool to share words from other writers and editors.

If you’re interested in learning more about communication from people other than me (as well as from me, I hope!), I invite you to follow me at @dbwcomm. I promise to make it worth your while – no clickbait articles or promotional madness!

Thank you for being so supportive of my blog. I hope to see you here again before January is out!

Cheers,

Sue

31 thoughts on “To Blog or Not to Blog? What’s Coming for 2016”

  2. Amen to this, Sue: “I firmly believe that writing good, meaningful content is more important than racing on a writing treadmill to stay at the top of the hit list.”

    I’ll be seeing if I can find you on Twitter!

    Pam

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  3. You’ve expressed what I’ve long thought. I started my blog almost two years ago, but only post every other week–and even then, it’s sometimes longer than that. I want to write novels, not be a slave to my blog, and as a housewife and mother, I don’t have time to excel at everything. In such a media/internet-saturated society, I’m guessing more people are going to feel overwhelmed with trying to “do it all,” and there will be a pendulum swing back the other way at some point. Thanks for showing the rest of us that we don’t HAVE to blog three times a week, just because a nameless “they” says we should. If our writing is good, it will stand out among the slush pile–whether or not we blog.
    I’ll be looking for you on Twitter. Blessings!

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    1. Glad to hear you’re on the same page, Laurie! It’s a lot to balance at times (as a fellow mom, I can definitely relate). I’m glad to hear your blogging schedule has worked for you. Thanks so much for your comment – I look forward to seeing you on Twitter. 🙂

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  4. “I firmly believe that writing good, meaningful content is more important than racing on a writing treadmill to stay at the top of the hit list.”—Yes, very well said. Like you, I’m not sure I can keep up weekly posting. Sometimes I already go two weeks in between posts. But there is so much else to get done. Doesn’t makes sense to spend it all in one place at the expense of our other endeavors. I’ll look forward to your posts no matter how often you get to them. 🙂

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    1. Thanks, Carrie! I like that idea of not spending it all in one place. We have multifaceted lives and it’s wonderful to be able to grow in different directions. I’ll keep that in mind as I journey forward! 🙂

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  5. Oh, so true! I have to remind myself of this when I start to see those alarmist articles about blogging! Better to create small amounts of stellar content, than loads of low-quality stuff. Happy to hear we’re not losing you, but fully understand taking a step back. Cheers to 2016!

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  8. Welcome back, Sue! And I totally hear you on the cloning thing. So far, this year for me is “the year of feeling overwhelmed.” There’s nothing wrong with updating a blog once a month, in my opinion. My general aim is to update my blog every other week, but sometimes it’s only once a month. This isn’t counting the Hazel and Holly series, which I count as an extra anomaly. 😉

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    1. Thanks, Sara! I’m looking forward to catching up on the adventures of Hazel and Holly as soon as I can. Your output for that series is amazing! I hope you overcome that overwhelming phase soon and that your year gets better. 🙂

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  9. Finding a balance, whatever you’re trying to achieve that balance for, is always hard. We need to find compromises. But I think if we really want to do something, we will find that balance and we will find the right compromise.

    Looks like you did 🙂
    I’m going following you on Twitter. Escuse me 😉

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    1. I once saw an article about time management that showed all the things you needed to do as pieces of a puzzle – the sizes of the individual pieces could shrink and grow based on how much time they needed, but the overall puzzle itself couldn’t get any bigger, because you only have so many hours. Compromise, indeed!

      Looking forward to connecting more on Twitter. 🙂

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  11. I’ve never been a very good blogger myself, but then again, I never did it for a platform. One night, I couldn’t sleep, so I just wrote to the world. I do feel bad that I’m not a useful blog. But trying to be useful would probably ruin my desire to blog.
    I hope you find success in your blogging (and non-blogging) ventures!

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    1. I think all of us blog for different reasons, so there is no wrong model. I know I’ve enjoyed your posts. Please keep on writing when you’re inspired, Loni! And thank you for your good wishes – sending mine to you as well. 🙂

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  12. I’m totally with you on quality over quantity. 🙂 Though it makes me sad to see that I might only read you once a month from here on out… I also understand, and in a way, it’s good! Less updates means I don’t have to spend as much time reading posts (and can get back to books, etc, this year…. I spent so much time blogging last year that I only read 5 novels to completion… a crime!)

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  13. It seems many bloggers are questioning their blogging schedules this year. Life seems to be more and more demanding, making time shorter for writing and doing a host of other things. See you around the WWW good luck. 🙂

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    1. I will definitely let you know if I stumble across the secret! I think you have to pick your platforms – there’s no way you can do all of them at once. Twitter just happens to be a good one for me right now. 🙂

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  15. I definitely agree that quality is better than quantity. I’ve been working on blog posts lately, but it’s just taking me longer. I figure it’s worth posting less if the content is something I can be proud of. Best of luck to you and I can’t wait to read future posts–even if they’re more spread out. ❤

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