DSC_3753Dear Blog,

It has been a great many months since my last post. I can cite all sorts of reasons but honestly, the biggest one is that I fell out of love with you because I’m pretty sure I was blogging for some wrong reasons, some right reasons, and some reasons that are less important to me now. Which pretty much confused me then overwhelmed me then made me want to crawl into a hole for a whole. So I did.

What does that mean for our relationship? It means we are going back to basics and we are going to get to know each other all over again. It’s gonna be mostly you and me kid because, well, when you drop off the blogging merry-go-around your friends, people who comment on your posts and interact with you, well they tend to disappear. Blog, don’t feel bad. It’s not you, it’s me. I stopped commenting on other blogs so people stopped coming over to check mine out and well, that’s the first step in a break-up, people stop really talking to one another.

But Blog, here’s the other thing, times have changed. I started blogging back when writers weren’t blogging very much at all. My very first blog was over on blogspot and for a long time the only conversations were between me and Don Tate who was also a pretty new blogger. Back then Don was just circling the publishing mountain and oh boy, now he is doing all sorts of things, writing wonderful books, creating terrific art, and speaking out for diversity in children’s literature.  Through it all, Don kept on blogging, kept rolling with the social media changes. Me, not so much. I’m an early adopter. A sprinter. The long-haul commitments have been hard on me, especially when things feel one-sided as they often do. Not just for me. For many of us.

Anyway Blog, you remain my first love. Twitter took me away from you for a time as well and Facebook but my heart, really, my heart belongs to you Blog because I can tell you things more in-depth than I can post in any of those other places.

I jumped on the blogging bandwagon and loved it, especially when I moved over to LiveJournal and met so many of my friends there. We closed the circle around the water cooler and vented and cheered and cried through so many things together. I was going to try and list everyone and I realized, my goodness, I simply couldn’t because there are so many of the kidlit bloggers that I got to know when blogging was hot and heavy and took up most of my day between writing posts and responding to them. But know that I love you all and am so grateful you came into my lives.

So I’m back. And I’m going to try and do this a little differently this time because really, I have no choice. Times have changed. Everyone is blogging and no one has time to visit and comment on the gazillions of blogs being published every day. So instead of letting that make me feel bad, I’m going to try and let it make me feel free. Free to explore my writing world and how it has changed and what I plan to do next. Because I feel sorta lost in the publishing world lately. It’s been years since my last book came out and I’m not sure what direction my writing is going to take me next. Well, I have a few ideas and I’m going to explore them here. With you. Because I know you understand.

And if it is just you and me doing this dance with no one watching, that’s okay. It just gives us more freedom to explore and go crazy.

Blog, we’re going to get to know each other really well. Some serious navel-gazing about to take place. Are you up to the challenge?

I thought so.

To start with I am going to try, no, never mind. I’m not going to tell you what’s coming next. I’m just going to come over here and sound off when something strikes me and share it and move on. You’ll never know if I am going to talk about writing or art or photography or looking for a house or dealing with a dog or the fact that there is no chocolate in the house when my craving for something sweet threatens to overtake me.

You’ll be surprised by how much I share with you. Again. The way it used to be.

Trust me, Blog. This is going to great.

 

 

 

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