Blogless Life

I've pondered off and on during the last three years whether I should continue blogging. Blogging isn't THE platform to reach interested followers these days, and people, generally speaking, just aren't into reading anymore. I guess some do read other forms of social media, but blogging isn't THE fad these days. Besides, my creative leisure seems to be more and more limited as time goes on, and sometimes, my own publishing deadlines are downright discouraging for me.

Then, halfway through 2022, my blog disappeared. Six weeks it took me to get it back up and running! 16 hours of online chats with techs who apparently didn't know anymore than I did about what was wrong. What felt like zillions of emails and assorted social media inquiries as to whether I was okay, if I had taken my blog down again (I did that briefly in 2020), and why the danged free patterns had disappeared.

Ravelry announcing my patterns had been discontinued. Facebook censoring my Sisters of the Snowflake pattern links to a new temporary blog I set up during the interim - because the word "snowflake" doesn't mean the same thing to everyone. The security warnings readers would have to navigate when trying to access my unhosted blog or temporary blog.

I'd thought I had only three regular daily readers until my dad died in June. I thought I had just two daily readers left. I found out there are a lot more people who care about us than I realized. And I learned, via temporary loss of it, my blog is very important to me. I actually had no idea I get so much satisfaction from the weekly challenge of a new snowflake pattern and a (hopefully) monthly WIP finish until my blog went away.

I knew family and friends on social media missed my daily photos because they tell me almost every single time I do on rare occasion share a photo now. Several have said my photos brighten their day, and I know they want me to go back to daily posting. I didn't realize, however, how much I crave Wordless Wednesday until I lost it. I assumed my photos had become boring because we don't get out much these days, and how many garden photos can you publicly share before you've drained all interest out of your followers?

There are moments now when I think I could never give up blogging. Just moments, mind you. I'm not promising I will blog forever, but I don't think I'm going to be wavering about whether to keep going for a while. This was a tough enough and rewarding enough experience that it recharged my blogging batteries. And maybe recharging those batteries has also refreshed the creativity wells deep inside me.

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