Blog musings part deux

First of all, let me shout a big thank you to everyone who read my last post and took the time to respond on my blogging conundrums . There were so many thoughtful comments of both information and support here and on my Facebook page. Everyone gave me lots of ideas to ruminate upon!

As I read the comments and thought about it over the weekend when I was camping with my family, I wrote a mental pro and con list regarding my blog. I don’t wish to bore you with all the details of the machinations of my brain, I do want to say that all this thinking did give me a “lightbulb” answer.

What hasn’t changed since 2005 is that I still love to write. Blogging gives me an outlet for my words. I’ve never been much of a daily kind of journal keeper  – written  or visual. Rather, I tend to write when the muse strikes and something inside wishes to escape. I also write for deadlines, but that’s a totally different kind of writing, much akin to my days as a working journalist. My columns fit into this category for me, not my blog.

I also have things I want to tell people, such as when and where my classes are and what events I’ll be at with ICE Resin and Susan Lenart Kazmer LLC (our company) or when my books/articles come out. I often have fun things to share, like art projects or blog hops. I enjoy being at a mixed-media or crafting event and have people come up to me to tell me they read my blog or saw a Facebook post that meant something to them. It makes me feel  good about the time I spend working on all of the behind-the-scenes things that I keep quite about until the time comes to shout them from the rooftops.

I truly love what I do. Words and art and business are my passions. I’m just as passionate for my family as well. Because the driving force for social media is my business, I tend not to share as much on this front because I find myself walking a fine line between sharing too much or too little.

When it comes to what I write about, I’m not so great at pretending. I’m real. What you read on my blog or Facebook/Twitter is the same person you’ll meet in real life. I believe in sharing information about the process of writing craft books or art columns, developing products, teaching or whatever the subject may be because I’ve met many people drawing the same path.

As someone who does marketing as part of my career, there are too many messages — both subtle and overt — that sell us stuff by making us feel “less than”.  One of the things I’ve learned in my fortish years, it that I am not “less than” anything. There are things I’m good at and things that I, frankly, suck at. It’s not a judgement call. It just is. Part of having my blog is sharing these thoughts with other people and learning from them because we’re more alike than we are different.

So…ta da! Bottom line. I’m still a blogger. My lightbulb moment though is that I will continue to read and listen to the pundits and experts on social media because it’s part of my job and because there’s a lot of good information. I will continue to share my stats and “platform” marketing strategy with the people whom I’m doing business with who care about such things. However, I am not going to blog just to blog. This may mean three times in one week or it may mean two weeks of  inactivity.

All of the social media research suggests that I’m going “weaken my blog position” should I follow my instincts; that you all will grow bored with me and unsubscribe. Or that other artists who faithfully maintain their social media will rise ahead. The experts may be right, or they may be wrong. I love a good challenge. I’ll let you know how it turns out. Course, you’ll know the answer because if my instincts are wrong and the experts are right, you won’t be here to read anyway. If that’s the case, please let me truly wish you an Artful life right now. In the end, that’s all I really want for all of us.

Thank you for being here and helping me to process. It’s been a great few days!