It has sadly become pretty obvious to me, at this point, that I am not going to be able to maintain the twice weekly postings on here… as much as that devastates me. This blog had really started gaining some momentum in my life, but we all have to prioritize things. Sadly, at this time, my blogging is not the top priority.
Here are the priorities:
- Teaching. I signed up for this and definitely don’t want to be a half-ass, shitty teacher. Planning lessons takes A LOT of time. And planning good or even great lessons takes even more time. And then there’s the grading…
- Studying for the GRE and applying for grad school. While I enjoy blogging, and for a time, thought that maybe I would try to make a living as a blogger/freelance writer, I’ve decided that isn’t quite what I’m looking for. I want to become an expert at something. I want to research and write about important things. Sure, I could do that without going to grad school… but I’m not sure that I could get paid enough or be respected enough without going back to school. And teaching sure as hell isn’t going to pay me enough.
- Taking care of myself and my relationships. This means having plenty of downtime and vacation time in order to travel, hike, camp, and just generally, have a life and decompress. I don’t want to be the kind of writer who just imagines life through writing – I want to live a life (and then maybe write about it).
- Writing. Yes, it’s still on the list. I’m not giving up the blog. But in order to reduce some stress on myself, I need to back off my expectations about how frequently I should be posting. Realistically, I will probably post twice a month.
So the question is, what should I blog about? What did you read on my blog that made you click the “follow” button? Do you want more posts about travel, hiking and adventure, like my post about Havasupai in the Grand Canyon? Or do you enjoy reading about feminist issues like my post about how I quit shaving my legs or how I wish we could get rid of the little boxes that we expect girls and boys to fit into? Or maybe you enjoyed the inspirational series, including the 1 question interview with Jade Beall? I haven’t written a lot of poetry lately, but I’ve definitely gone through phases of poetry on here – check out Collisions. I’ve also written about the writing process and just about my life in general – a lot of people seemed to like my post about why everyone should go on a writing getaway.
As you can see, my blog is kind of all over the place. This is helpful in terms of having plenty of options of what to write, but it seems to not be as focused as some of the other blogs I read. Do you like reading about a lot of different topics on a blog or do you think it should be more focused on one thing? I spend a lot of time researching, writing, and editing my blog posts, and I don’t want to lower the quality of my posts. So instead, I will write fewer posts about the topics my readers are most interested in – that way I can maintain high quality posts as well as my sanity. 🙂
Please take the poll and/or give me more general feedback in the comments section.
Trynia Kaufman 
I filled out your survey cuz you asked — and I’m easy like that! — but truth is: I follow personal blogs (as opposed to bigger sites, with a collective of writers) because I like the person that comes across in the posts. Whenever you have something to say that is authentic to wherever you happen to be happening at that time, that’s really what I read for.
Congratulations on your priority list! That all sounds like good stuff going on…
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Haha well I’m glad I asked! I actually just read a book called The Art of Asking. I think this blog post was somewhat inspired by the book! I’m trying to learn to ask. 😊 thanks for your feedback!
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I understand Amanda Palmer’s work has had a similar influence on many of my friends, especially the ones who could be grouped under that weirdly amorphous (to my ears, at least) category of “makers.”
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haha. Yeah I could never live like that – I need structure and consistency in my life. But I definitely can take some of the ideas from the entrepreneurial spirit!
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I came from the community pool. I like blogs where the writer puts herself into her writing.
What do people like? Well, search engines have found a few of my posts, and bumped them up above a thousand views, and like another whose olive pate is her most read post ever these seem random. None of these people ever comment.
For me, write what you want. Making money blogging seems a precarious thing, and for that you would need to be focused on the SEO and writing for hits. So write for fun: for interaction, that is comments, or about what you want to write about. And good luck with grad school.
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Thanks for the feedback! That’s how I’ve been leaning – trying to always write something that is meaningful or that I am passionate about. The travel blog posts have gotten the most views and comments for me since I can post the link on various travel sites, but I struggle with getting people to read and comment on more in depth posts that I care more about. So it’s a struggle for me… Sure I can write for the fun of writing, but it’s more about the interaction with people who are reading and the dialogue that comes from that. But when I only have a few people reading, it’s hard to get much dialogue. So I guess that is what I’m trying to figure out. Who are my readers and what do they like? Thanks again for your comment!
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I have lots of readers who never comment, though they keep coming back. I experiment with anonymous commenting- no need to be logged in, no need for an email- but still, nothing. I get most comments from reciprocal commenting relationships.
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