Getting Back Into Music Blogging

My writing path began in 2007 when I started my music blog. Initially, the blog was one of my boneheaded ideas for promoting our band's music. I forgot to factor in the blog's undiscoverability. Well, people will just find it! I probably thought. No one did. 

But while my writing didn't catch anyone's attention, I loved doing it. It's difficult to explain to a non-writer, but the process of writing is calming for me. It's like a giant exhale. At the same time, I never know what thoughts will migrate from my brain to my fingertips, and thus I was often surprised and delighted by the finished product (if I do say so myself).

Eventually I grew tired of talking about our album release, so I moved on to other music topics, and I had a lot to say. Even when I had nothing in mind to write about, I always found something, and it ran the gamut. I spotlighted a particular artist or I raged about the latest stupid industry move; I reviewed my favorite albums. I once found an album title generator and a random image site, so I combined the two and wrote "reviews" of these fake albums. Those are some of my favorite posts. Or I'd pick a particular moment in time and review the top ten charting singles of that week. 

From there, the blog expanded to include topics outside of music. I wrote a five or six-post recounting of one of my work life implosions (I think I needed to get it out of my system), and it was by far my most commented-upon posting. (Yes, I had managed to gain a few followers by then.) I also combined music with childhood reminiscences, so the posts were still technically music-related, but were also fun (and funny) looks back.

Somewhere along the way, I thought, well, I do this writing thing pretty well; why not try my hand at fiction? I mean, how hard can it be?

That's when my music blog grew lonely. Contrary to my misconceptions, writing fiction was hard, and it was time consuming. I confess, it wasn't as fun as writing my little blog posts; there was much more discipline required. In fact, after a particularly difficult writing session, I would sometimes turn back to my music blog, just to decompress. But those times grew more and more scarce. There simply wasn't enough time to both keep up a blog and write a novel. 

And the truth was, even after being a dedicated music fan for ^#*$@ decades, I was losing interest in music. I hadn't kept up with the new artists (still haven't, despite my best intentions), so I found myself going back to the old well time and again, and I was aging myself out of the music blogging market. 

Like with my fiction journey, I found myself asking what the point of music blogging was. Google had (erroneously) deleted my blog, so I lost all my followers, and since my only recourse was to copy and paste all my past posts into a new blog with a new name, there was no way for those followers to find me again, if they even wanted to. (Now all my followers are bots.)

I no longer got any feedback (just like with my fiction), and though that wasn't my purpose in writing posts, it felt (rightly) that I was only talking to myself.

Thus, between my waning interest in music, no feedback, and being immersed in my fiction writing, I was lucky to pen a couple of music blog posts a year.

I think it's time to get back to it. My fiction writing days are over. but my love for writing isn't. I think I can rekindle my desire, but perhaps refocus it. You'd never know from reading this blog, but I'm actually funny when I want to be. Maybe I'll start by skewering music, whether through more reviews of fake albums or exaggerated takes on the music news of the day. My book marketing is at a standstill, so I have nothing left to do.

If you're inclined to take a look, you can find my blog here. 

And if you're a real person, I'd love a follow.