Blogging, pacing and a re-think

For years now, I’ve run Druid Life as a pretty much every day blog. Occasionally I miss days, but not often. This week I’ve taken the decision to halve my output. I hope those of you who are following me will be ok with this, but part of the point of halving my output is to improve on the quality of my blogging. It should give me more time to think about things, and fewer days when I cobble a post together for the sake of posting, rather than because I have something to say.

There are other reasons. I want to make more time for music, for fiction writing, and for time off. I’m also exploring video making a bit more. As I’ve been spending time promoting other authors, I’ve come to notice a thing about the internet. It’s especially true on Twitter, but not just a Twitter issue. Vast numbers of writers get out there every day to compete with each other for your time and attention. Many of them do not get the attention they deserve, and there’s also a lot of empty vessels out there making a lot of noise. I want to change my relationship with this. By cutting down on my blogging, I’m making room to spend more time sharing other people’s work, without as much risk of overloading anyone on social media.

My aim is to post here on odd numbered days (the Moon Books blog posts on even numbered days, so this will balance nicely). It may well be that I use the days I’m not creating content to reblog other people, and for guest blogs. I may use that space to flag up things I’m doing other places, I don’t know – we’ll see how it goes.

I’m looking for a gentler life balance, I want it to be easier for me to take days off, and I want to invest more in the quality of my own work. I want to spend more time reading. The daily blogging has become so much an intrinsic part of my day, that not doing it is going to feel weird, but I need to challenge myself, and letting go a bit with this could, I think, be a good thing.

When I started this blog I was a total unknown as a Druid and as an author. That’s changed a bit. Increasingly however, authors have to spend a hell of a lot of time pushing themselves forwards in order to build a readership and sell books. I don’t want to feel this constant pressure to attract people and persuade you to be interested in what I do. I want to share things I think are interesting. I want to help other authors and creative and active people – make life that little bit easier for people who are doing good stuff. So this is, in part, a laying down of all ambitions to be a Very Important Druid or a popular author, in preference for doing something I think will be more useful. I feel good about this choice, and optimistic about the shift of focus; it seems like a step in the right direction for me.