What's Going On Here

So, I took a look at my blog today. I noticed the last time I posted.

October 2015.

October. 2015.

That's not really a blog. More like a biannual update.

I've been doing some deep thinking lately. Trying to figure out how to balance life, writing, reading, parenting, other work (like editing). And the thing is, if I want to devote my life to writing--and I do--then there's only so much distraction I can handle. The Internet is Distraction #1. (By the way,  YA novelist Nova Ren Suma has a fantastic blog called Distraction No. 99. I highly recommend it.) It's not just that posting things to a blog or Tumblr or Instagram takes time; I probably have the requisite little blocks of time. It's more a matter of focus.

Ours might be called the Age of the Short Attention Span. I've been watching mine erode over the last few years to an alarming degree, and really, if you want to write, you can't have a short attention span. You've got to stick in it for the long haul. Not to mention the fact that I feel physically unsettled, anxious, even kind of nauseous if I don't devote myself to long periods of what writer Cal Newport calls Deep Work--that kind of long, sustained focus on a project that used to be the norm for me. Which is why I used to get a lot more done.

I'm not going to shut this blog down, exactly. But I won't be here often. I'll run a giveaway if it occurs to me, but frankly, that takes a lot of time and scattered mindplay as well, so I won't do one every month as I was doing last year. Mostly, what I'll be doing is writing. If I have something to say about that, I may tune in here. But for all you half a dozen followers, I don't think it's going to change your life much.

And for everyone else, not at all.

If you're a writer, consider this path: the path of working, not networking. I'm thinking it will take a lot of stress off me and put more words on the page. Just an idea.

Blog Overhaul

Last year I blogged 104 times. That's about every four days, though not on a strictly consistent basis. Still, not bad.

But here's what happens: I work, too. I research books, write books, rewrite books, go over copyedits and galleys, schedule appearances, put together presentations for schools and lit festivals and author events. I also do freelance editing for book publishers if I have some extra time. So the pressure of blogging all those books I read, or keeping up a blog series, or what have you, gets to be a distraction.

I'm not kvetching about the job. I have a good job, and I love it. But it's always hard to see where blogging should fit in, especially considering that very few people (let's be honest) seek this blog out and read it.

In 2015, I'm taking it easy. I'm not promising to blog every book I read. Instead, I'm going to try to do this:

• report on what's going on with me--news, events
• post the occasional list of writerly links
• call your attention to fabulous works of children's lit
• host the occasional giveaway
• keep you updated on all the fun to come re. the release of The Wand & the Sea

Hey, I know I'm not Neil Gaiman, who can get away with this kind of blogging and expect people to actually read it. But maybe this method is better suited to the life of a writer. I'd rather spend my time creating wonderful books.

And, I imagine, you'd rather spend your time reading them, instead of this.


image: "Hallwylska museet-3" by Pelle Sten--Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.