New Look, New Direction (sort of...)

Change is natural. Change is good. Change is what happens when you’re making other plans—is that it? When I was a kid, I used to rearrange my bedroom a lot. I liked the fresh perspective it gave me, a way of being a new you in the same place. So. You may have noticed this blog’s new clean and stream-lined look. I started typing away in this space five years ago and I’ve really enjoyed it, not only as a way to join the dialogue about books and writing, but as a practice field for my skills, a place to work out thought processes and flesh out ideas. I’ve written book reviews, contemplations about the writing process and the publishing business, film reviews, short fiction, and lots of posts that can only be filed under the subheading: Other. And for the past year, I’ve been sharing a “Poem for the Weekend” each Friday, a practice which accomplished what I had hoped: it got me reading more poetry. A bonus: the exchanges I had with readers about poems they love. So although I’ll be discontinuing the Poem for the Weekend feature, I remain open to hearing about poems you’ve found and I might still share one myself from time to time.

So what’s the new direction, you ask? The thing is, I’ve got this novel to write. Anyone who's undertaken this foolish task will tell you it doesn’t leave much creative juice for anything else. I will still be blogging (no fear!), but maybe my posts will be more brief, less fleshed out. And because I’ll be deeply immersed in fiction, I anticipate that the offerings will lean towards topics involving inspiration and creativity and of course, the routine and practice of writing. I may share something I saw that galvanized me; I may point you to something I read regarding the nuts and bolts of the process. And I will always feel obligated to point you to an amazing novel or film. Often, I may just pop up for air and to say hello.  

I’ll still be writing an occasional book review or musing for the LitChat blog (as long as they’ll have me), like this one about which readers YOU should be writing for: Writing in the Round.

 

Meanwhile, there are more changes afoot! Keep an eye on my author site, maryvenselwhite.com, in the coming months for more new stuff and possibly, some book news. And of course, I’ll be hanging around Twitter and Facebook if you’d like to connect there. Thanks, as always, for staying with me.