New Year, New Blog, New Me

Back in November, I was at my peak of productivity, probably in my entire life. In just thirty days, I wrote an entire 51,000-word novel, uploaded nine blog posts to this site, and completed 12 full-length books. I came out of the experience feeling more confident and satisfied with myself and my abilities than I had ever been before, but needless to say, that kind of creative sprinting takes its toll.

I went into December with the bar set high for myself, ready to have another month full of lengthy blog posts and knocking titles off of my TBR, and ended the month with two posts written and no log of how many books I completed. Essentially, I gave up and allowed myself to fall off the radar in terms of this blog.

This was a welcome break for me, and while I am still somewhat new to the blogging world, my experience the first time around was tainted with unrealistic expectations and a foggy vision of what my intentions really were. I started off on the wrong foot, modeling my posts after what I saw on Pinterest and focusing too much on what the reader would think rather than focusing on writing from my heart, and writing what I really knew.

My first few posts were an absolute mess in this aspect: the posts themselves lacked any substance or lesson to be gained, and I spent twice as much time creating endless failed Pinterest graphics for the posts than I did actually writing them. In essence, I came up with posts that I thought people would like to read, but not really topics I had anything to say about.

When I started writing book reviews and writing updates, however, I started to feel more like I was in my element. I knew what I was talking about and I enjoyed it, and the content improved tremendously as a result, but when December rolled around it stopped being enough for me. I started to get the feeling again that I was doing it for everybody else but myself: I was more concerned about scheduling and making sure my posts were perfectly spaced out, even when I knew that my heart wasn’t in it, so I took a few weeks off.

To be completely honest, I had no intentions of returning to this blog when I gave up on it originally. It felt like it just wasn’t for me anymore, and I was willing to just appreciate that I had a good run and move on to my next big project. It wasn’t until recently that I started to change my mindset about why I burned out so quickly.

I love writing fiction, and while I’ve spent most of my life limiting myself to that genre, I found through blogging a new form of getting words out that makes me feel confident and keeps me working toward my goals. The reason I let this blog go in the first place is that, while I love writing and reading with all my heart, those two things just don’t encompass the entirety of who I am. I started to feel like those were the only things that mattered about me, but I’ve come to realize that there is more to my life than that, and I have a lot to share about plenty of other things as well.

So I’ve come to the conclusion that the best way to continue with this blog while also continuing to make myself happy is to broaden the scope of my blog’s content, and to write because I have something to say, not because someone is telling me it’s what will make me most successful. This time, it isn’t about the numbers. This time, it’s about writing what I feel and what I think the world deserves to hear, and I believe that will make all the difference in the quality of my posts.

This page will still feature the occasional book review and writing update, but I have other plans in the works as well. I hope to share travel stories, health and fitness tips, school and studying advice, short stories and general musings, and anything else that comes up in my life. From this point on, this blog is about who I am, and I’m excited to find out more about myself in the process.

Thank you so much for reading, and I hope that if you decide to stay and see what new things will be coming to my blog that you enjoy the change as much as I do.

XOXO,