Writing all over the place

Three or so years ago I decided to start keeping a journal. I fill around ten or twelve notebooks each year; fewer, I've noticed, since the pandemic began. Each one is numbered and put away when I finish. The last one was #35.

About two years ago, I think, I decided to check out from social media. I deleted my Facebook and Twitter accounts; for a little longer I held on to Instagram, but finally snipped that one, too.

Somewhere along the line, I decided, too, that I wasn't blogging in a way that pleased me any more. I was a very productive blogger once, on a personal site where I logged near-daily observations for most of twelve or thirteen years. As I began to publish books, the way I blogged changed; the blog started to feel like a marketing channel. I didn't like that very much, so I retired the blog entirely.

Nowadays I write in a variety of ways, for different reasons in each place. I keep journals for myself, and perhaps one day for my daughter, if she cares to read them. I write a newsletter for readers who are interested in things like my writing process, or things I'm learning about myself as I work on projects. I'm beginning to keep a blog again. (I think I'll keep this one light, filled with little thoughts that aren't substantial enough for the newsletter—just a few hundred words, things that can be read in a minute or two.) And finally, I write stories that, eventually, can be read by anyone. (At the moment, two novels in parallel.)

Like many people, 2020 and 2021 have affected my creative side in a variety of ways. For a while, writing was harder than it's ever been before. But I'm writing a lot right now, and it feels pretty good.