I took a hiatus from my blog, The Write Stuff, around this time last year. I’d been posting every week for two years, right here on my website. I was working on some especially time-consuming projects at the time, I wasn’t feeling the same joy I’d previously felt while writing the blog, and I felt like I needed a break.
It’s been about a year now since I’ve written something for the blog (or so I thought—more on that in a minute). So I’ve had some time to refresh and reflect. And I’ve come to a few conclusions. I’d like to share them with you because I think we can all relate and perhaps learn something from my experience.
The first thing I learned (or remembered) is that I liked writing the blog. I’ve missed it. Sometimes I thought of things I wanted to share with my fellow writers there. But when I stepped away from it last August, I wasn’t getting the same joy from it, and I didn’t want to return to it unless I could find my joy again.
The next thing I learned is that it wasn’t writing the blog that was stealing my joy. It was a lot of other things. When I took some time to think about the things that were causing overwhelm in my life, I had to own the fact that part of my overwhelm with the blog was of my own creation. I said yes to things I didn’t like doing as much, which didn’t leave enough time for the things I do enjoy.
Another important thing I learned was that I had turned this thing I’d once loved doing into a chore by being a perfectionist. Writer/Life Tip: Perfectionism is a form of procrastination, and procastination is a form of imposter syndrome. I was ruining my blog by expecting too much from it. To paraphrase Jane Friedman, “It’s not a miracle. It’s a blog.”
The last thing I learned as I was moving the content from my 2021-2023 blog posts over to Substack was that I hadn’t actually stopped writing the blog. I’d just stopped posting what I’d written. I discovered I’d written an entire year’s worth of instructive and motivational posts, just in different forms: in emails, for clients and groups of clients, and for other newsletters and things. So I’ve added all that to my Substack, too—a total of 150+ weekly blog posts I’ve written over the past three years.
Speaking of self-care, I’m big on self-care for writers. The thing is, I don’t always heed my own advice to stop, take a walk, take a breath … live. I’m doing more of that these days. And this goes for writing, too. It’s work, yes. It’s a job, yes. And I urge you to treat it like a job and to show up for it. But it’s a passion, too. It’s one of the things that makes you who you are. Learn from my mistakes: Don’t wring the joy of out the things you love most. I think that starts with clearing your plate of a whole lot of other things that aren’t the things you love.
In my last official blog post on August 31, 2023, I wrote, “Maybe I just need a break and will return reinspired and reinvigorated at some point, with a fresh take on things.”
Well, guess what? I’m reinspired and reinvigorated. I’ve got a fresh take. And I’m back. You can find my blog on Substack now, at Leanne by the Sea.