Course Correction and Moving On

I have been watching my stats lately and discovered that my most popular posts are the ones that are the most personal. Somehow that doesn't surprise me. I think people like to read writers who speak from the heart.  My initial purpose in setting up this blog was to sell my novels. I suck at that, because I really don't want to "do" marketing. Now they say that marketing books doesn't work anyway, so what's the point of doing it?

I like blogging, though.  Blogging is a different experience than writing fiction. I like writing about my Journey, not just my Journey as a writer but my Journey as a person.

I'm at a transitional place in my life right now: feathering my now-empty nest. I'm not writing much fiction these days, I'm too busy navigating a new leg of my Journey.  It's a time of introspection and reflection.  I'm pretty sure some new stories are percolating through my subconscious even as I write this, but I'm not ready to write them yet. I have to live the process first -- then I'll write fictional stories about what I learned. (This is sort of a reversal of my previous technique of writing stories about things I feared. Interestingly, I realize that I'm not afraid of this new, unknown life I'm moving toward.)

There are a whole lot of other Boomers navigating the same waters. For me, blogging is about sharing a Journey. This is not a blog for writers. It's a blog by a writer who's an empty-nested Baby Boomer. [That sounds like a bird.]  I find pleasure, comfort and inspiration in reading blogs by people going through similar transitions. I hope that others will find the same thing here.

As long as I still have my day job, I am not going to step out from behind the pseudonym.  I am, however, going to write more personal stories here.

I guess even when I'm not writing fiction, I still need to tell stories.

This chapter involves moving to a new apartment that I picked out and rented all by myself, without even consulting anyone else.  It involves helping my daughter move into her first apartment, more than 1000 miles away, and then returning to my own little corner to figure out what to do next.