I just euthanized two of my blogs.
And no, I’m not in mourning. Not even sad.
It was time. Everything has a season, and it felt like the blogging season as I once knew it was waning.
I had a lovely conversation - a real live conversation! on the telephone! - with one of my favorite fellow bloggers on this very subject. We talked about how blogging has changed in the years since we started, about the growing tendency to use blogs as one part of a “platform,” about the way social media like Facebook and Twitter have risen to prominence and almost usurped blogging as a digital network.
The conversation was a good one because it helped me recall the reason I started blogging in the first place (I wanted a place I could express my ideas in writing and share them with others), why I want to continue with it (to share those personal stories which I believe create connections between people), and what I hope to gain in the future (the impetus to continue writing, continue connecting with others, continue exploring life in general and my own in particular through the written word).
But it also made me realize that blogging has revealed other ways to satisfy my urge to write, that same urge for connection which provided the impetus to register a blog and push “publish” for the first time. Because of my involvement with blogging and other social media, I can write for e-zines like All Things Girl. I can connect with other readers through Goodreads and my Bookstack Facebook page. I can even go old-school and call people like Angie on the telephone.
I don’t need three blogs to do any of those things. So instead of three separate blogs, there will now be just this one, the place where I started almost seven years ago.
The place where we meet to talk about life in general.
I hope you’ll join me here.