February 1st 2016

I would love to say I'm back with a fresh perspective and a new attitude, ready to tackle the new year and post tons of great content and really interact with my readers.

I would. Really. Love to say that. But I kinda can't.

I have been struggling with blog ideas lately. After taking some time off to do holiday things and get a bit of a break, I really thought it would just kind of naturally come back to being fun and exciting and worth reading. But I don't know if it will.

When I first started this blog, I wanted to really share my views on Nonsteading and why technology is our friend. In the past 6 months or so, I've written over 100 posts and the most popular ones were a breaking news story and a Top 10 list of British TV shows. Occasionally I would post something that really connected with someone, and that was great. But am I really writing enough stellar material to justify publishing something every day?

I used to get so frustrated looking over my Twitter feed, seeing authors and creative types resharing the same blog post for a week. It really seemed like you should post your stuff, share it around on the social sites the day it came out and maybe for one additional day, but then leave it alone. I never felt right trying to force people to read my words, and I guess I still don't. I also hate feeling like I'm "selling" someone on my point of view. If you want to see what I've written, well, there's links to stuff, enjoy. I always felt like people would get sick of seeing me link the same blog post 300 times in one week, because I had not posted any new content.

I guess what I'm really wondering is, am I alone in this? Does anyone else feel like you should only market fresh work? Does anyone else mute/unfollow people who post the same link over and over every few hours? Should you publish something everyday, just to have new material or should you wait until there's some real gem and only publish once or twice a month? Should you only blog about big events like releases and preorder dates?

Until my holiday break I was getting about two thousand unique views a month here, and I felt like that was great. What I'm wondering now is, what made you visit? Was it an interesting tag line? Was it the title of the blog post? Was it the repetition of the link? Was it that you actually enjoyed reading what I wrote? What exactly should I be aiming for?

Now, yes, that may seem lazy, asking readers to tell me what they want to read, but I am honestly curious as to the draw. If everyone told me that Caturday was my biggest pull, that doesn't mean I'm going to just turn the blog into one giant Caturday machine. I'm more curious in honest feedback about what I've done so far, and what people would like to see more of. Most of the time I don't get any comments on these posts (maybe a few +1's on G+) so hopefully someone will take pity and leave their thoughts.

Hope

Structure

I'm quite sure none of my readers know this already. I hate structure. I despise being forced to have a schedule. When I started my blog, I told myself that I would write every single day. I needed to post to attract readers and maybe get some of those people to read my book, and then maybe find those people on Twitter, where I could post more blogs. It's a cycle.

Obviously that experiment failed spectacularly right around the holiday season. I realized I was burning myself out, had lost a ton of data on future post ideas and was just generally very blah about the blog. Plus I really like spending the valuable holiday time off with people I enjoy seeing, family, people I can't see most of the year. So, I felt like a tiny break was acceptable, and I hope my readers can forgive me.

Then I realized that I had author interviews and fun guest posts coming up this month and I started to get excited again. I've had a great time working with Mr. Ephe and other upcoming guests! Sharing the space I have here, (hopefully) getting them some new readers or fans, all of that has made it fun again.

I still need a bit of time to get my blog-legs back under me after such an extended break. I will probably be easing back into my blog throughout January. If this blog still exists at this time next year, I plan to do the same sort of thing. Starting in November, I will be tapering off my posts, a few things over the holiday season and then slowly producing more content starting in January until things get back to normal.

I also think the every day posting schedule is kind of failing. Certain things I wanted to do like #TuesdayBluesDay just haven't seemed to catch on. So, without further ado, I give you:

The 2016 Hope Woods

Blog Patch 1.01

1. I will be taking Thursdays and Sundays off.
2. I may still do hashtag days but they will likely be limited to once a month.
3. I'll try to get one interview and one guest post each month.
4. I will try to maintain #Caturday.

I would love some feedback about these ideas, suggestions, any comments, etc.

Please feel free to email me suggestions for #TuesdayBluesDay or if you would like to Guest post in 2016. If you are someone who does something interesting who wants to be interviewed, please contact me!

nonsteader@gmail.com

#LiSJAW

Ah, we have now entered Scorpio on our astrological calendar.

Well, we entered it back on the 23rd. But the blog was busy that day.

I am the first to acknowledge that making fun pictures with words is hardly easy. I personally farm that work out to creative types like Belle. So, I went and bugged an internet buddy and asked for some help. I also hassled QQ Moore about creating some fun paintings or digital art pieces. I happen to be obsessed with water (it's probably a Scorpio thing) and I wanted to better showcase that elemental draw.

So we're doing a fun collaboration called "Life is simple just add water" or #lisjaw.

This pic is not mine,
just an internet find.

C'est la vie.

Or perhaps it's better in Italian...
L'acqua è vita.

Life is simple. Just add water.