Six weeks without Facebook. Life without a blog?
Using my keen graphic design skills, I illustrated my departure from Facebook six weeks ago with a couple of Crayon masterpieces (Crayon mathematics: Bambi v. Sauron and “necessary evil”).
Unfortunately, I used the word “mathematics” in the title, which is a surefire way to get people not to read a blog, no matter how stunning its graphics. I might as well have titled the post: “Tempted to open this? This blog will eat you, and your children, too!”
The weeks since I posted that have been full of bustle. Happily, none of that bustle was due to hours spent online in the name of building my authorial presence online, a mission whose scope and import I’d long blown out of proportion. And wouldn’t you know? This weekend’s book giveaway is faring more successfully than any previously, despite my simply posting about it once, tweeting it once and stepping away. (The Monster’s Daughter is #337 free in the Kindle Store, and #1 free in Teen Literature & Fiction, which is far better suited it than all the genres I tried and discarded before.)
If I was online the last several weeks, it was because I had something I wanted to say or do enough that I’d accept using my cell phone to do it.
As of Thursday, all my family’s stuff was moved to our new place. As of yesterday, we finally had internet in it. I thought I’d be overjoyed to have it back, but I find I feel mostly ambivalent. Life felt slow and melodic without it.
Amidst heaps of boxes and clutter, I find myself sitting on the one uncluttered surface here and wondering how much of my new life at this new place I want to spend online. My heart’s answer right now is clear and easy to hear through the silence: very, very little.
This is what they mean by “room with a view,” right?
There’s a choice and a chance to change in every moment, but it never feels so clear as on the verge of a new year or in a new residence. I haven’t built my patterns and routines here yet. I can shape them as I wish.
I know what I wish now. I don’t know how that wish will be borne out in the weeks to come, but I am curious to see how it is. I wonder if I’ll blog every other day, once a week, or once a month. I wonder how many blogs a day I’ll read, or if I’ll remember to check Twitter, or how many times I’ll load Instagram to scan through new images.
There’s no goal. No deadline. No mandate. Just playing it as I go.
One thing will ever remain certain. Whether I blog daily, weekly or monthly, I’ll almost always have a few minutes in my day to peek at other folks’ blogs. There’s no author-versus-self question in that. Instead, I find there is simply the goodness of being reminded just how beautiful and breathtakingly vast is the human experience.
I don’t have answers yet. What I do have is a willingness to listen, and to follow with my ears the sweet notes that lead my heart to sigh contentedly, “Thanks, Deb. You’re doing it right.”
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Deb, you are doing it right.
♥ I was just standing here thinking about your comment yesterday with lots of love when this comment came in. Lady, I am so grateful for you.
“There’s no goal. No deadline. No mandate. Just playing it as I go.” I think I might have to adopt that as my new mantra! It’s perfect! Sounds like the right way to do things to me.
You are doing it right. I admire you and love you always.
KATY! As if this morning wasn’t awesome enough, words from you just amped up the goodness. Seriously, I am sniffling now, just thinking how much I love you and hoping all is well with your wonderful family. ♥
I love that we’re both going through the same sort of restructuring in our thoughts and lives <3
Me, too! I think often of your post from a month or so back, since it reinvigorates me in my pursuit of listening and acting in accord with that listening. I kept trying to change my actions to change my thoughts, and it did help a little. But changing my thoughts, or allowing them to slowly be changed without resisting that? That change ripples out naturally into my actions, and every day feels a little brighter for it. ♥
Finding our voice and the time for it are two entirely separate and different things. When I first started my blog I listened to the voice of other people telling me I had to blog daily, capture audience of immense proportions and become ‘loved’ and meaningful, first on google search.
I sweat bullets, dragged myself through glass, bled ego across my desk.
Then I realized it wasn’t what I wanted. I just wanted a voice. I wanted a space that was blank for me to fill with that voice, be it rage, hurt, observation, humor, love or joy. I wanted that space to be mine and me. If my audience was ten or ten thousand, it didn’t matter so long as they gained something positive from their visit. If I was number one or number one million on google search it didn’t make or break me, so long as those who truly needed to find me were brought to me not through hap stance but through the gentle hand of fate.
Deb, you found your voice long ago, now you are finding your space to breath.
Speaking of “breathing,” you remember how I said I always breath easier when I see you’ve left a comment, and that when I actually read your comments it’s like a weight is lifted off my shoulders?
What you said. Exactly what you said, although I didn’t think of it in such poetic, apt terms. I read so many things that I had to do as a blogger and as an author to establish and maintain my presence that I lost sight of what I wanted in my unseeing pursuit of someone else’s objectives.
I was talking with El yesterday and said something very much in synch with your comment. Paraphrased, it was: “The last month without internet, I’ve had a chance to see what I want from my blog. I don’t want any objective, or ulterior motive, or any of that. I just want to share something because I am moved to share it, because it’s a part of my life that I want to be able to revisit ten years down the line, that I want Li’l D to know about me.” Gone are the expectations or demands for myself.
I will post what calls to be posted, and rejoice in the beautiful dialogue with beautiful hearts that’s opened by it.
Much love to you. So much. ♥
Just a quiet amen, Val. As I was saying to Deb, I’ve pretty much lost all interest in blogging. There, I said it. LOL. I mean, wrote it in print. I just can’t do it all (sniffle) and something’s gotta give, especially with I Run coming out soon. And while blogging really helped me develop my voice, I’m finding more and more that it constricts and constrains me. I just can’t blog, follow blogs, and write the books I wanna write . . . and honestly, most the blogs I could write now would be about the writing process, the marketing and self-publishing process, and all of that feels a bit self-serving. SHHHH El.
As I said to someone else, earlier – you have to blog organically. If it feels right to blog, then do – if it doesn’t, then don’t. There’s no point in making blogging something that’s a chore or a duty.
When we first moved to our current place, we were without the ‘net for a few weeks and I loved it! The environment is beautiful and fit for dreaming and enjoying. However, these days I have to blog, it’s just what I need to do.
Darkmoon you are doing it right. I hope you are enjoying your new place! No matter how often you blog, I will always read them. I come lurking daily to see if anything is new (regardless of title ) and read on. (I am definitely not a wordsmith and have trouble focusing enough to get the right words out but know that I love you and your writing.
AAAAAAAAAH! Man oh man, am I glad I sat and typed this out from the sofa this morning, because my heart is just bursting with love from each of the comments on this post! *sniffle*
I think of you often. I may not be on Facebook anymore, and I may have spent way too much time there, but some great things came from it. Like getting to know you.
♥ from Dark Moon
I absolutely love hearing about lil d who is so close in age to my son. We seem to go through similar phases at the same time so I hope thats as comforting to you as it has been to me.
I’m with Val. Blogging is not a job for us, it is a way to express ourselves whether about silly or serious subjects or something in between. Nobody is grading us. I’m pretty sure there isn’t a soul who is sitting up saying, “Elyse didn’t post since Wednesday — has all gone right with the world?” Your words will have more value if they come when you want them to flow, not when you have a self-imposed deadline.
Of course, when the New York Times offers you or me (or more likely Val) a column then I’ll go along with this scheduling schtick.
Hee. Love this. I’ll leave the column to your or Val! Anthony’s always asking me, “But if you could just write a book a year and never work otherwise again, wouldn’t you do it?” My answer is always a vehement, “No!” I briefly majored in journalism in college, but I never, ever wanted writing to be something I had to do; I loved it (and love it) too much to put so much pressure on it! Of course, I then went and found another way to make it all pressure-filled, but I’ve taken off the lid and, once again/finally, the steam’s drifting where it’s meant to be rather than struggling to find its way out of confinement.
I’m pretty sure Word Press is a pressure free zone!
You are doing it right, because you are listening to yourself!!!!
I, too, find myself to be the most happy and relaxed when I allow myself to be AWAY from the internet; being unplugged is good for the mind, body and soul. Certainly, it’s fun to check in periodically ( to read those authors that really hit it out of the park), but it’s more fun to go to the park with a child, a pet, or best of all… your best friend!
When I would read folks blogs and they were being done daily or twice a week, I started feeling inept at the blogging process, but then I realized that when I blog my way (whenever the Spirit moves me) I’m much more productive. Everyone has their own way, so what works for some is a personal choice.
Go to my blogroll and check out “Hands-Free Mama”; you will love her site and her goal… it’s right up your alley.
Happpy Writing, Deb… for whenever you feel like writing…. whenever!!!!!!!
Take your time, and do what you feel is right, for when it feels right. Make sense? I don’t blog as often as I should (other than pregnancy updates) just due to right now my life is the same, or just not sure on how to word my words, so to speak.
Rather you blog today, tomorrow, a month, or in a few weeks we will all be here to catch up with you and your thoughts. Hang in there, you are doing it right, and you are wonderful in everything you do.
I felt your perspective take a turn when you posted “looking at stars” or some such. Yes–record those slices of life as they happen, when they happen and/or if you are moved to share.
Glad for you, you are moved–what a chore! I don’t know how you even posted this in light of all that lifting.
I love this post. Why? Because in it you sound sane and relaxed and logical and mature. You are learning to take care of you. Good! Please know that IF you post, WHENEVER you post, I will read.
How do you do it, Deb? you always put things I’m thinking in such an eloquent way! I’ve been almost blogging three years this summer. In that time I’ve had highs and lows…some months it felt like I was forcing myself to crank posts out. Then I’d step back and realized the joy was being sucked out of it and I was the culprit.
I am constantly trying to find that balance between wanting to write for the sheer pleasure of it or feeling I HAVE to write at some set schedule or else…or else what? I don’t know, really. haha! Like Elyse said, it’s not like someone out there is keeping track.
Now I’m forcing myself to take long blog breaks and posting when true inspiration strikes. Last week I wrote 3 posts, next week, nothing. And I am LOVING it. I feel like I’m writing on my own terms and not for someone else.
You hit the nail on the head Darla. If it becomes a job, well then,it AIN’T! We all need to find the balance in our lives and do this shiz because
we want to.
Someone said to me today that I seem to “follow my inner promptings to do what I’m being called to do.” I’ve never thought of myself that way, but the description seems to fit you well. And now it feels like such a compliment, such a healthy thing!
You’re paying attention to what feels right and good in your life. Can’t go wrong with that attitude.
You are doing it right. At least I think so. And I’m always right, so there ya go!
You are doing it right. I still miss you, but I get it and I’m trying to make similar changes in my own life.
You’re eloquently saying what most of us feel. Whatever you decide is best for you is what is best!
You’re defintiely doing it right, Deborah!