I had a great topic for a blog post, but I was in the shower or out in the garden or walking or doing something other than writing so my idea took flight and disappeared, leaving me just like the swallowtail butterfly in our garden with the half missing wing. I can still fly, but there’s a space that I would usually depend on to ride the air currents.
Where do we get our blog topics? Sometimes it comes from a particular word – see my posts on grace, gratitude, grief, solitude. Lately I haven’t had many words come to mind except Solvitur ambulando (it is solved by walking). (Speaking of walking, yesterday I did my first hike on Cobble Hill Mountain in six months. Almost fully recovered from my injury!) Instead of words, however, I’ve had songs in my head—constant earworms that range from Christmas carols, to 70s cheesy rock, to 90s grunge. And everything in between (including commercial jingles—“Wash and go with Pert!”—remember that one?).
Sometimes there’s an event that inspires a blog post. For example, one of my more recent posts was about the restoration of a local estuary and how that will eliminate a favourite walk of mine. That event—the moment when they dig out the berm and close off the trail—doesn’t have a definitive date, but it will be momentous to me.
Other times I get an idea from something I’m working on. The last few weeks I’ve been beavering away at my next book proposal, so haven’t had a lot of time for other writing. I use up a lot of spoons on the proposal, and don’t have a lot left for other things like writing this blog. I’ve been working with many ideas, though, like whether or not you can be ambitious with a chronic illness, and even what it means to be ambitious as a woman and with a chronic illness. Or comparable books that inform my work and add to its breadth and depth. Of these I have an embarrassment of riches, as I’m writing about three key themes that are not usually considered together, so there are quite a few books that tie into each of those different themes.
This week I didn’t make enough time to find a good word, event, idea for the blog. I was deep into my proposal, figuring out how to make my comparables make sense, how to end Chapter 2 on ambition. Did chapter 1 and 2 have the same “voice?” If not, which one would have to change? Who is the book’s audience? Who would I market it to? This is where I really had some insights: considering who my audience was made me realize that the proposal was too heavy on the first theme and light on the other two, and I needed to make them more equal.
All this is to say that I didn’t get to my blog until last night. And I had an interesting conversation with my husband that led me to write this post. He said I have an obligation to blog readers to post on my scheduled days, to provide regular content on a set schedule. He said maybe if I was going to work on my book I should do just that and put the blog aside for a while.
It made me think, first of all, about the number of spoons I spend on blogging versus the number I need to work on my book. Sometimes a blog is easy to write and it takes me just over an hour and a half to write and post it. Not many spoons at all. Other times it’s a longer process—my estuary post was written in two stages: first draft of 700 words, followed by a complete rewrite and restructuring into a different 700 words. That took longer, and I needed to let it percolate for a few days in between the first and second drafts. Hence—way more spoons.
But how does blogging fit with book writing? Originally I had thought I would write blog posts related to my book content. But I don’t feel I’m at the point yet where I can do that. I’m still working out my thoughts on the book as I plow through the proposal, after which I should have a much stronger pitch for it. It’s definitely getting there, I can see the progress as I work on it, which is a nice feeling. I should have more ideas to spark blog posts in the next few weeks and months.
It also made me think: what do I owe you, as readers? Do you feel jilted if you don’t get a biweekly post? I know people on Substack who seem to post at random—I get posts once a week or once a month and any time in between. Some readers don’t care—they just read things whenever they arrive in their inbox.
But do I want more regular posts? Yes. I would like to read posts every two weeks. I want to see what the author has been up to, what they’re thinking about, what ideas are percolating in the back of their mind. What are they working on? Have they met someone interesting, been somewhere new? Maybe these questions are ones that should guide my blog—if that’s what I’m looking for in other blogs, then that’s what I should provide in mine.
One of the people I follow, Matt Bell, only posts every few months. I like his posts, but I wish he would engage more regularly, especially because I think he has some interesting things to say. His latest post requested examples of typos for an Object Lessons book he’s writing about, you guessed it, typos. I had a good one for him. At our local green waste drop off, they have a sign that says “no evasive species.” It cracks me up every time.
So, here’s the deal. I’ll do my best to send you something thoughtful every two weeks if you promise to engage in the comments or online (mostly BlueSky these days, though I feel like I should be more proactive about posting to Instagram). I’m looking for a conversation with readers, not just passive consumption. I know it’s hard to manage the deluge of newsletters and podcasts et cetera out there. I’ve done my fair share of cutting down my newsletter subscriptions because I just can’t reasonably keep up. But maybe you just want to say “hi” or “that was really interesting and made me think of X and Y.” I’m good with that. And I’ll try to do the same for the newsletters I follow.
Blogging for me is about creating a community. You readers are my people! Introduce yourselves, poke around on my blog, add a comment when you feel so inclined. I’d be happy to hear from you. And who knows, your comment may spark a new blog idea!
