On Balancing Life and Blogging

This week I did something I haven't done since starting this project: I took several days off in a row. I had to. This is the last week of the term, and I have too many things to juggle. I have papers to grade. I have articles to review. I have my daughter to hang out with. Blogging has a way of taking over one's life, and it had done that to mine. It insinuates itself into your consciousness, leaving this perpetual sense of dread in the back of your mind. "If I don't post I'll lose my readers," the ghost of blogging's future whispers insistently into your ear, and to lose one's readers is a blogger's death. You want to believe the voice is feeding you lies. You want to believe you can walk away at any time and come back to your beloved readers when you're good and ready for them. But you can't. The voice is right. Your readers are fickle and busy people. They have other things to do than wait around to look at your new pics. Not posting is like ceasing to exist, and in my case, it knocked my numbers back to where they were almost two months ago. That is exactly what I feared would happen. It was almost the worst case scenario. And guess what? It really wasn't that bad. 


So this is what I've decided: I'm going to stop measuring the worth of my blog by the number of people reading it. I'm going to produce the best content I can, when I can, as consistently as possible, and as frequently as five times a week. I'm going to make my content more variable to keep it more interesting for myself, alternating between street style pics, interviews, reflections, and a new feature in which I profile prominent Philadelphia bloggers and fashionistas. I'm calling it "Philly Style Profiles." Look out for my first one tomorrow. I hope this new approach brings in readers, but if it doesn't, I'm not going to let it get to me. I have accomplished plenty in my life. I don't need a huge readership to make me feel good about myself. I hope.