Social Media Sin – Saying good-bye to my other blog at Literary Liaisons
A HUGE Social Media Sin – So Sorry
(repost from Literary Liaisons)
I’ve committed a horrible sin. Well, a social media sin anyway. I’m not actually willing to talk about other sins I may or may not have committed, just the SM ones. Anyway, I took 6 months off from blogging. Yep, unforgivable, I know. This happened for two reasons: first, I needed to focus on my health. Which I did and I’m going to be fine (thanks for asking). Second, after nearly 9 years of blogging about writing, the writer’s life, and storytelling I felt I had said all I had to say and that others were carrying that torch far better than I.
The break has given me a little perspective.
When I originally started blogging my greatest desire was to be a published author, which I am, and to understand writing (ongoing), storytelling (an evergreen topic) and how to improve my craft – and as I’ve said many times over the years, writing is a life-long apprenticeship. When we stop remembering that, we stop learning, when we stop learning the stories we want to tell become stagnant.
Me with Stewart.
I was stagnant. Maybe it was the stress of dealing with chronic cancer, maybe it was that I’d lost interest in what I was writing, maybe I’d stopped learning, either way, I was stagnant and stagnant is not a good seat for creativity.
A few years ago I had the opportunity to know and to write with Hollywood royalty, the amazing Stewart Stern. Stewart once told me he had stopped writing at one point in his life because he’d lost the spark. “When you lose the spark, kid,” he said, “step away until it comes back.”
So, I stepped away until it came back.
The time off gave me an opportunity to get reenergized and plugged into what I was/am passionate about in storytelling. So instead of writing about the things I’ve written about in the past (how-to stuff) I will write more about my story-telling passions. Like currently for my next novel I am studying and writing about Egyptian Burial Rituals, among other Egyptian rites, for my protagonist, Esmée who grew up going on dig sites with her parents prior to WWII. Right now in my story creation phase these things fascinate me and deepen my story world exponentially.
I also was torn between continuing to blog here on Literary Liaisons or just blogging directly from my web site www.MindyHalleck.com. During my time off I realized that maintaining two blogs is just too much. SO, I will leave Literary Liaisons up as a resource for writers, but will blog from MindyHalleck.com from now on.
I appreciate and value your continued subscription to Lit-Liais, and sincerely hope you follow me over to www.Mindy Halleck.com and sign up to receive my ongoing posts and thrice yearly newsletter, and of course I hope you continue to use Literary Liaisons as the writer’s resource it was always intended to be. Either way, keep putting words on paper. Happy writing, Cheers, Mindy
P.S. If you have a writerly how-to post you would like to share on Literary Liaisons as a guest writer, Please send me your quick pitch (2-3 lines about topic and resources) and I’ll consider it as a guest post on Literary Liaisons. If I like the idea I’ll send you a message about how to submit your article for consideration.
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