The Truth Of Life

Here’s the deal: I’m a busy human. I’m attempting to write a novel, edit another one, find an internship for this summer, work, participate in college-level theatre, and get a chemical engineering degree.

For the last six or seven months, this blog has not been a large part of my life.

I’ve been scheduling posts and writing them as far as a month ahead of time.

I hardly know what’s going on here, and that makes me sad.

Back when I started this, I had all the time in the world to write posts and really invest in what I was doing. Sadly, that time is now gone. I have a life. A lot of it.

Ruining the Surprise

Before we go any further, I want to ruin the tension (although the writer in me protests, I feel it for the best): I’m not ending this blog.

There.

Breathe.

Everything’s going to be fine.

Except maybe it won’t.

Here’s the deal: writing has and always be a huge part of my life. Once I’m out of college, I’m going to start work on slowly finding a publisher. I’ll attend writer’s conferences, practice pitching, write and edit the crap out of novels (when I’m not working an actual job, that is), and someday be published.

Who knows, maybe I’ll become a full-time writer in twenty or thirty years, after working for a while in the line of my planned degree.

Except… that’s in twenty years. For now, I’m just writing. I’m writing because it’s my passion and I love it and will never give it up.

So I’m just going to say it: I don’t want to write something I don’t have passion for.

Of late, I’ve not had passion for this blog. I don’t have the passion for it. I’m not motivated enough to put effort into this place. The evidence is found in the lousy graphics for the posts, the cliché template of fire, and the fact that I still don’t have my own domain although when I first started I wanted to get one within a few months.

I’m just not as passionate about this blog as I could be.

And I figure out why.

The Importance of Caring

I tend to write long posts. Well, long-ish. They range from 600-1,800 words, and you know which ones I’m proud of most?

The longest ones.

Posts like “The Importance of Color” and “The One About Gender” and “Why A Mental Illness is Killing Your Novel” and so forth.

I’m proud of those.

I enjoyed writing them.

If a post is going to be good, I am going to enjoy it.

As soon as it becomes a chore, it stops being the best I can be.

I don’t want to give my readers that. I don’t want to give them the mediocre versions of my writing. I’m better than that, or at least I should be.

So here’s what’s going down:

I’m only posting what I care about.

This may seem stupid, but it’s an actual thing. I’ve written posts for this blog that I didn’t really care about, but I wrote them because I came up with the idea as a possibility and needed to write the next post.

I can’t do that, not anymore.

Instead, I’m going to become picky about what I write.

I want to write quality things. Things that, in ten years, I can say “maybe I’ve matured since then, but I still stand behind younger me at least in theme.”

Stepping Back, Learning to Care

I’m here today to announce that I’m pulling back. I’m slowing down. I’m taking time to really enjoy what’s happening in the now.

I’m no longer going to be planning out what I post two months from now. I’m not going to have seven or eight posts scheduled at one time. I’ll have one or two so I can miss a week without affecting you guys, but I’m not going to pump them out like I’m some freaking robot.

Therefore, I’ll only be posting once a week.

Every Friday.

Yup. I’m going back to old-school Story Forger, where posts were only on Friday.

And hopefully, hopefully, they’ll all be fantastic.

What this Does NOT Mean

Before anyone freaks, I want to say this: I’m not getting rid of LIAA. These posts will still happen. Perhaps not as frequently, since this is primarily a writing blog, but they will still happen.

This does not mean I’m ending this blog. I’m not. I’m just taking the time to actually care about it so that it’s actually excellent.

This does not mean I won’t post any less regularly. It will still be every single week, every Friday. Just not Mondays. And who knows, maybe I’ll post on Mondays for special announcements or something like that.

This does not mean I’m stopping writing altogether. I’m still writing. I’ve got Slaves to Prophecy to write, as well as A Pelican’s Flight, The Confessions of a Grilgen Priest, and half a dozen other stories I want to write.

The Truth of Life

The truth is, I’m busy.

The truth is, everyone is busy.

This is me taking the advice I want to give all of you: take time, slow down. Enjoy the small things. Enjoy those around you.

Enjoy the art you create. Whether it’s physical art or just the art of life.

Take time.

Enjoy it.