Why I haven't been blogging lately

When I started this blog I was a very occasional blogger. Then last year in February I decided that for Lent I would blog every single day. I think I only missed once, and then from that point on I always tried to blog at least 2 or 3 times per week.

But in the past few months I've trailed off quite a bit. Today's post will only be the third post for this entire month. And so now I'm officially in a rut.

When you blog a lot you get a lot more hits on your site... or as I like to refer to them, self-esteem boosters! Just kidding, although, there is some truth to that. Frequent blogging leads to frequent viewers, which means it's worth blogging because people actually read it. Now that I haven't blogged in ages, only a small handful of people will even see this post. Kind of makes me wonder why I'm bothering with it.

But that leads back to the title of this post... why did I trail off on the blogging in the first place? In part it began because I was getting too busy with the final weeks of my seminary education plus the pursuit of a job in ministry. But I also did a lot of introspection on the whole blogging process.

I came to the conclusion that I spread out my time too much. I invest into quite a bit of things that I really enjoy, and as the saying goes, "A jack of all trades is a master of none." In other words, I wasn't allowing myself to be truly great at any one thing because I was content being okay at a lot of things.

Now, I do consider writing to be one of my strong suits. It comes quite naturally to me and I think I express myself through written word better than I do through oral communication. So it might seem like blogging should be a priority for me, and at one time it was. When I started this thing I had the grand idea that it would serve as the jumping off point for a book or some other serious attempt at writing.

But what I've come to realize is that the opposite has become true. First of all, with a blog I'm forced to censor myself, I can't just freely write what comes to mind like I could with a journal. Not that I'm afraid to share my views, but I do want a certain level of comfort in what I share in a public forum. Secondly, a blog becomes more about generating hits and moderating discussions than it does about simply writing. And finally, when you read or write a blog, the style is altogether different then with a book or other form. Blog readers seem to like short pieces - even if when handed a 700 page book they'd mow it down like a pack of Skittles. In fact, I'm impressed if you've gotten this far. Thus, this is hardly preparation for writing a book or a novel because I'm not practicing the same type of writing.

And so with that, I'm honestly not sure I WANT to continue blogging. I enjoy the freedom that not blogging offers me. And I would love to commit my time to writing something I feel would be more worthwhile.

On the other hand, I do somewhat enjoy this. But if I were to continue, I'm convinced I need to be more focused. I can't just write whatever comes to mind. I'd love to have a blog that was more theme driven, such as blogging about being in ministry, or specifically youth ministry, or maybe celebrity gossip. Okay I definitely won't be taking on that last subject... but the others might have some potential.