A Scary Scenario

Blogging is about the blogger, because bloggers write what they know and, what they know—or at least think they know—is themselves. I am the ever-present subject material. In fact, by definition a blog is an online journal.

I’d read the definition before I started blogging, but it didn’t compute. My approach was weekly personal essays.

As many of you know, I started not one but two blogs, each with a different emphasis. Writing two essays a week was do-able—as long as they remained my focus. When I began adding other activities, however, the load became heavy. I've a new writing objective and am having trouble getting to it. We’ve had a few wonderful trips—even an incredible visit when we met family in Ethiopia. To complicate matters further, we've had car problems. And Christmas is fast approaching.

While visiting our youngest daughter last week I thought about blogging. I thought about my readers, the number has dropped slightly. And I thought about the fact that I've been struggling with full-scale weekly essays. I shoved the concerns away because family is more compelling, but I did think about it coming home Friday evening.

Ouch. On Saturday morning I woke up thinking I should close Sunny Pathway. Hard, because unlike Red, Red Berries which has very few readers, Pathway has developed a limited following. Nevertheless, I knew I couldn't abandon Berries. Even though I’m struggling as I push my way through, I feel strongly impressed to finish writing on spiritual armor.

I told Ken, washed clothes, ran errands (including picking up new glasses), shopped for groceries, made decisions on Christmas decorations for our deck—all the stuff of daily life—and went to bed early.

At 2:30 I woke up with Sunny Pathway on my mind. Confused, I made my way to my computer and began looking at the blogs I usually read but hadn’t, because we’d been gone much of the last two weeks. Then I looked at some I visit less often. Then I read the Bible, prayed, and went back to bed.

Yesterday, Sunday morning, I woke up with the impression that I should continue, not with essays but with something closer to a journal.

This is a scary scenario. When I journal for myself, I'm prone to sloppy writing. Things like unclear pronoun references. Maybe I'll learn to correct myself as I go. Wouldn't that be nice.

But I prepared myself by changing the visual format. I want something lighter, easier to read. The other template made for an attractive blog, but the print was dense and the brown along the sides seemed heavy. In the process I deleted the picture and am unsure about including it again.

Writing in a journal format means I won’t try to maintain a schedule—even though blogging experts say fulfilling expectations with regular postings is essential for building readership. Perhaps there will be periods when I’ll write daily—followed by periods when I’ll write weekly or less frequently. As I said, this is all scary.

Consider yourself warned. Because I feel I'm led to continue, I'm trusting I'll have something to say of value. I hope I'll have something to say of value. Postings will probably be short. In addition to my ideas, I plan to include gleanings from my daily devotions. That should broaden my subject matter beyond myself a bit. But self is always present. We’ll see how it goes.