A Blogging Update -- Time for a Change...

Hi, there.

Well, it seems that in my on-again, off-again blogging, I have been very much in the off-again mode this past month.

First, let me apologize for any concern that my unplanned and sudden absence may have caused -- I can assure you that really, all is well.  I went through a battle with the flu and some other things, and in spite of my good intentions, my short blogging lull stretched from a few days into several weeks.  But on the overall scale of "things-that-could-go-wrong," I'm thankful that my absence was mainly caused by things that are actually pretty low on the list.

However, it's become clear to me that at this stage in my life, blogging has had to take a bit of a back seat.  It's not that I don't like it, and -- thankfully -- it's not because I don't have anything to blog about.  This is supposed to be an outlet for "the creative output of StratPlayer" and I'm glad that I'm still managing to squeeze in at least a little time to do the creative things that I want to blog about.  So that's a plus.  It's much better to create and not blog, than to blog about what I'm not creating, right?

But still, I think it's time to make some changes to this blog.  I obviously need to step aside from any scheduled blogging activity.  I enjoy them, but I can't seem to make them a consistent, long-term commitment that I can honor.  So I'm stepping aside from the Battle of the Bands, and also from the Insecure Writers Support Group.  I enjoyed both and have nothing but respect for the founders of both, but I think it's wrong to take part in something unless I can consistently do so.

I may still post a "Newsday 200" kind of story from time to time, but the scheduled "Tuesday" part of it will stop. 

Moving forward, this blog will become more of an unscheduled, solo journal -- no "gotta post on a given day" kinds of posts.  More like just a place to post and share any writing and music that I create.  That's really my core intention for this blog, anyway.

But I'm afraid this will not be much of a social blog.  No blog-hops, no blogging events, no blogathons, no "sign-up-in-the-linky-list" activities.

I know there are a LOT of wonderful bloggers out there that I've come to know and admire and enjoy over the years, and I do regret that I don't have the time to interact with them much for the foreseeable future.  I also know that my blog will likely suffer in terms of readership -- there will unfortunately be very little, "I'll read and comment on yours if you read and comment on mine" exchanges for a while. I don't want this to sound selfish -- as I said, I REALLY do enjoy all the other bloggers I've interacted with, and I will still try to visit their blogs as I can. 

But for at least the short-term future, my blog will pretty much shift to being just an journal of my own stuff and not as much of a home base for any interactive, social blogging activity.

Of course, I still welcome you to visit and read and listen and hopefully enjoy what I post here.  But that posting may be on an erratic schedule, and I will not be able to do much in the way of return-blogging and commenting reciprocity.  Please don't take it personally -- if you have a blog of your own and don't see much from me, it's absolutely NOT that I'm avoiding you or that I don't enjoy your blog. 

I'm just that when it comes to blogging, I'm afraid I'm kind of stuck in a "post-and-run" time-crunch these days.