Jeremy C Kester

To schedule or not to schedule, that is not the question. The fact is that I need to schedule. I need to create routine. Leaving my blog to the chance of my inspiration when I am making a high effort to concentrate on fiction is the sign of doom. If I want to keep up this site with more than just the occasional update on books I publish or stories I write, I have to develop a plan.

So, I have been working on one.

I’ve thought about it. A lot. When it comes down to what I want to do, it is writing stories. I want to write fiction. That isn’t to say that I don’t want to write about other topics. It only means that my focus is on storytelling through writing fiction rather than blogging. Writing blog posts was honestly taking away that energy.

Before committing to an idea, I looked at a couple of things. What were other people doing? What are other writers doing?

For those who write books, more often than not, they are not blogging very much. If at all. In looking through sites, I see a lot of novelists and authors who only blog once a month if they even keep up a blog in the first place. Occasionally there are those who blog more frequently, but it is rare. Those who typically blog a lot are precisely that: bloggers. Or they concentrate more on non-fiction in their writing endeavors.

I am not a blogger or a non-fiction writer who writes fiction on occasion; I am a fiction author who occasionally blogs or writes non-fiction pieces. Although I wasn’t behaving as such.

Another thing I found, is that writers spend more time on social media than I do. They (some) use it more effectively than I do. Other’s not so much. Given the new age though, having a social media presence is very important. Possibly more important than blogs. Blogs are a great tool, but they can’t be the only thing I pour my energy into as was happening.

All things considered, I do not want to get rid of my blog as it still has a lot of value even just as an outlet. I want to give all my readers, be it those who read my fiction or otherwise, the best content I can provide. However, I do also have my own goals and ambitions. And when I started looking at the data I was collecting back in January on my writing habits, blogging just took up too big a portion of the pie. I was cheating myself out of my real goals.

And as I mentioned in a prior post, I am leaning heavily on making a routine posting schedule, so that I keep up with it. But I don’t want it to take up that much time.

I want to start with 2 days a week. Monday. Thursday. Starting today.

Other updates will happen as they happen, including the “last month in review” posts I started on the first every month. I hope this will help me provide more meaningful content while allowing me to focus my energies more appropriately rather than wasting everyone’s time to just throw something up and call it a blog post.

Hope everyone understands.