Hi! I miss you…

It’s been a minute, yeah?

More like thousands of minutes.

It’s hard to write bogs or social media posts and think or believe or whatever that no one is reading them. Hell, it’s hard to write books and think or believe or whatever that no one will buy them, but that’s a discussion for another day.

However, I miss blogging. I loved it. It was writing and I loved writing. Long winded writing most of the time, but sometimes, it was just snippets of happenings. It was my avenue to share things that I liked or thought or cared about. Even on the days I dreaded it. Even on the days I was like… Well, fuck. What do I write about? I loved it. I loved being part of a group blog and I loved blogging solo. Blogging was more than a sound bite or a clicky headline. Blogging to me was…love.

Now, I was never good with the keyword stacking and SEO and getting my blogs to rank on Google or Bing or Yahoo. I never really cared, either. All I cared about was it was my way to connect with the people who liked me and liked my books, who liked what I had to say at any given moment about any given subject. And I was thinking the other day about the epic giveaways I had on my birthday or at Christmas. KitchenAid mixers, Keurigs, cookbooks, fiction books, Kindles, etc… I loved it all. And I miss it. I really fucking miss it.

Blogging is going or has already gone the way of the dinosaurs. Unless one already has a really well established audience, blogging as an individual is no longer relevant. Bloggers and readers migrated over to Facebook or Twitter or Instagram or some other platform. But I have to be honest here… I’ve spent my fair share of time on Facebook (hate it), Twitter (just so much drama and people telling other people what to think, do, read, write, etc…), Instagram (comparisonitis is really prevalent, but I do enjoy Instagram and spend way too much time there). There are others, too, that I honestly haven’t investigated because time, time, time…

I also got lost in what am I supposed to say on my Facebook profile vs my Facebook page vs my Facebook group vs my newsletter vs my blog vs my Twitter feed vs my Instagram feed vs my Instagram stories vs… See what I mean? I just don’t have that much content or brain space or… And so, I pretty much just… Yeah.

But back to this post… I miss blogging. I miss the writing and the talking to y’all whoever y’all happened to be at the time. One person or twenty. I miss y’all and I miss this platform because it’s mine. This platfom is all MINE. Even with all the social media pages and profiles and feeds and stories and whatnot, I always go to someone’s website. I always look at someone’s pages and blog posts because I want to know them, the them that gets watered down through the variety of social media posts. I read newsletters, too, but truth be told, I have more than 1000 unread emails piled up over the last year that are primarily newsletters. I don’t always read them when they come in. They get lost in the shuffle because some people send out newsletters every single freakin’ day. Some I’ve been subscribed to send out more than one a day and it’s like…OMFG STOP!

I think though, even if no one reads my blog posts, I’m going to start blogging again. Blogs, to me, are more intimate than social media, like a conversation or a letter among friends. I know they say newsletters are supposed to be like that, but honestly, I haven’t hit my newsletter stride yet, because reasons… I’ll come back to that one on another day, too.

If you read this, feel free to say hi. If you don’t read this, well, that’s your loss.

Until next time (probably tomorrow or one day later this week)

Tune In and Tune Up Thursday – Inspiration

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When I wake up in the morning, I grab my phone and check email, Facebook, Twitter, my Amazon KDP dashboard (this one always makes me want to pull the covers over my head and hide), and Pinterest.

Twitter isn’t often fun for me anymore. My feed is full of links to blogs, books…things so scheduled out that I’m never sure anyone is actually there. I hate that. I understand the need and ability to schedule tweets or send all your social media posts automatically, but it’s called SOCIAL for a reason… and Twitter is meant to be social. My feed is no longer social. It’s a bunch of headlines and links. No engagement, no investment. This is fine and works for some. Not me. I like a good mix of interaction and links to what’s out there beyond my usually small window.

But today, I found some inspiration on Twitter…the most unlikely of places.

I’m a sports fan. We all know this about me. If you don’t know it, stick around, you will soon enough. After all, football season is only 5 months away. 😉 And golf is getting into full swing… (see what I did there?)StickShift300

But, I’m a race fan. It goes back to when my son was little and seeing the cars on the track on TV helped him speak, helped him learn, helped him stand…

I’ve got a small racing series I write that I hope becomes a bigger series with spins offs and all sorts of fun. I have to be careful with the terms I use in my books, terms like Nascar, and the images I use on covers. But the basics of my book series stem from stock car racing, my own little fictional world where I can have and voice opinions, where I can share a few things I’ve learned over the years going to races, listening to radios and scanners, touring pit road, and seeing the garages.

And while I’ve been considering a spin-off, one of the directions I didn’t even know I wanted to go in hit me hard this morning. It was a total light bulb moment. It is a brilliant and fun and so full of possibilities direction, I can hardly stand it.

And this, my friends, is what writing is all about for me. It’s all about passion. What I’m passionate about. It’s not really going to sell a lot, because I’m not writing in a trending sub-genre of roamnce. I’m not changing who I am to write something. Through my writing, I am finding me, and I think that makes for a better, more fun book because it’s a journey I can take readers on.

GrindingGearsWhat is this new idea? Nope. Not sharing yet. What I will say is it’ll be full of fast cars, strong women, and hot yummy guys… And you’ll see more information soon.

I love inspiration and being inspired and when it comes along in places I no longer really enjoy, that’s makes it all the more special because it makes me realize that perhaps I shouldn’t give up just yet…

If you don’t follow me on Twitter, click HERE. I would love to tweet with you.

Stay tuned, y’all…

~lissa

 

 

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