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Letting go and moving forward

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15

Sometimes, in order to move forward, we have to leave things behind. It’s never easy to leave these things behind, but by doing so, we become lighter so that we can hold more of what is just ahead.

That’s how I interpret the adage, “When one door closes, another opens.”

I’m sure you can guess where this is going.

I have been blogging personally for about ten years. Maybe more, but I feel old if I think about it too hard. I started off in Diaryland or My Own Journal or something like that, moved to LiveJournal, and then found WordPress and have been using it ever since. I’ve always written about my life and what I was going through in a physical, paper journal, but I found blogging to be more rewarding. I made a lot of friends while sharing my life, and met a lot of people going through similar things. It was comforting, knowing that there was always someone out there listening.

I used to look at my blog as a security blanket. I couldn’t go a day without writing in it. More and more, though, I’m finding myself going days without even thinking about it, and when I do finally think about my blog, I realize I have nothing I feel the need to write about. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time — even before I mentioned anything — and I’ve decided that it’s time to move on.

Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against personal blogging. I’ve just come to a point in my life where I have no use for having my own personal blog. I want to focus on the adventure ahead of me: going back to school for my B.A. in English so that I can read and write for a living. I want to spend my time reading and writing, and not worrying about updating my personal blog or Twitter account so that people don’t think I’ve fallen off of the planet. I want to spend more time nurturing Freaking Bookworm, because I’ve finally found my “niche” in the blogosphere.

I want to shed the things I no longer need or use so that I can make room for the things ahead. I want to simplify, instead of collecting.

I’ve felt lighter ever since I made this decision.

I’m not just shedding my blog, though. I’m cutting down on all of the domains I own. I’m not using more than half of them, so I’m letting them just expire. I’m letting go of my @elizawhat account on Twitter and just using @freakingbookwrm. I’m looking for someone to take over Letters of Love. I’m getting rid of all nine-hundred of my email addresses, and just using liz@freakingbookworm.com. I’m considering deleting my Facebook, too.

I feel so good about all of this, even though it does make me a little sad. There is so much ahead, though, that I don’t feel empty the way I would have if I’d made this decision a few months ago.

I’ve already set up my new email address, but I don’t have a definite date yet for when I’m killing everything else. You all know where to find me, though, and of course, I know where to find you.

Flareup 10, Liz 1

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6

The mystery rash has returned! I had a feeling it was coming back, since my chin started itching again Friday, but I was kind of hoping it was just an itch, you know?

At least the joint pain and constipation are under control. Sigh.

Anyway, I’m almost done with Sade On the Wall. I’m also going to win NaNoWriMo, since I’m only about 3,000 words away from the goal (which is 50,000 words, for those of you new to NNWM). This will be a first for me; the first year I did NNWM, 2005, I finished my novel (The Praying Mantis Experiment), but was about 100 words off from 50k. The novel also sucks, big time. I finished NNWM in 2007 and 2009, but to this day haven’t finished either of those novels (The Cure Program and Secondhand Mom, respectively).

I’m so excited. I have mixed feelings about finishing the novel itself, though; in one way, I can’t wait to get to the end, to say I did it, but I’m also sad because… it’s over. Maybe that’s why I have such a hard time finishing novels — the over part. At least with “Sade” I have a sequel planned. I’m thinking of writing all of her journals throughout high school. I won’t say anymore, because I don’t want to give away the ending — I’ve known for a couple of months how it is going to end — but there will definitely be more.

Besides, I can’t let my awesome readers down! I am truly grateful for everyone who’s been reading. It feels amazing to have a group of people other than me waiting for each chapter, begging me for the next, feeling everything I feel as I write. I guess it’s how Stephen King or Maureen Johnson feel when their books hit the shelves and they start getting feedback from their Constant Readers and jars.

When I look at it that way, this flareup loses, completely.

An internet junkie reaches out

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I’m been thinking about how much time I spend blogging, tweeting, being on Facebook, and reading other blogs. I’ve decided to set aside one day a week for all of this. If I did that, I’d have more time to get work done and more time to write, and I wouldn’t feel guilty. The truth is, I feel guilty enough that I don’t read blogs like I used to. I used to read blogs every single day. Now, I’m lucky if I get on every day.

I get awfully distracted during the day. I think, “I need to tweet this!”, or “I need to check Twitter to see if so-and-so replied to me about blahblahblah!”, “Let me check my email real quick!”, or “I need to blog this!” I use these things as a means to procrastinate. I do it without even meaning to. Before I know it, I’ve spent a half hour tweeting, twenty minutes blogging, another twenty minutes reading through Facebook, and another few minutes staring at my screen trying to figure out what I was doing before. I feel guilty that, in the hour or so I spent tweeting, blogging, and on Facebook, I could have been writing, or doing some work.

I’m far from lazy. I do get things done, but I know I could and should be getting more done.

It will be hard, but I need to stop letting these things distract me. I expect I’ll be jumping on now and then anyway, but I want to make Sunday my official “blogging and social time” day. I want to discipline myself not to jump on every few minutes to check something or say something. I want to have the kind of restraint where it can wait. I don’t want to be this attention deficit creature that spends every hour of every day trying to keep up with everything and yet getting distracted like the dog in Up.

This isn’t to say I’m not going to be around at all. I’m just going to try really hard to not be on constantly, every day. So, if you see me on Twitter dicking around, slap my digital hand.