This is not an accountability blog. At this point, I doubt that I’ll be doing the accountability blogs anymore. They have stopped working for me, stopped filling me with delight.

Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about how I communicate with the outside world, whether that be through my Patreon essays and Thursday writing blogs, my two personal newsletters (not counting the MCM newsletter and the occasional Milestone newsletter) as well as my regular blog.

I blog because I’ve kind of always blogged. I’ve had an irregular blog since 2000 or so. Possibly before that. It’s only been in recent years that it’s become more codified, much more regular, with regular topics.

The questions I’ve been asking recently are, “Is my blog advertising?” And, “Should it be?”

For me, right now, the answer to those questions is, “Kinda.”

I have never been focused on making my blog be advertising. It’s been much more about me chatting with people and talking about whatever is currently interesting to me.

But—that aspect of chatting with people *is* advertising. It’s keeping an awareness of me in the potential customer’s mind.

May I assure you that I do not intend to start doing a bunch of advertising or marketing. I wouldn’t enjoy writing that any more than any of y’all would enjoy reading it.

I do want to make some changes, though. In part, it’s because I have a butterfly brain and I need to do something new. In part, though, it’s because I also am kind of in the middle of relaunching my writing career. I’m getting new covers, doing new blurbs, producing new editions, changing the price points, etc. I want to do something that’s more in line with who I am as an author today and moving into the future, not who I have been.

I have always been pretty straightforward and honest in my posts. I’ve possibly been too personal. That is going to continue. If you’re a reader and are offended by that sort of thing, then my work is not for you.

To give you a hint about what I’m thinking about, I keep going back to my author tag line, the one that really speaks to me.

Come someplace new.

I love that idea of exploration, of finding new things, or even finding the new in old things. In many ways, that is my personal brand as well as my author brand. And that’s more of what I want to blog about moving forward.

So what is new in your life? What new things have you tried? What new thoughts have you had?

And the picture? This is a Top Hat blueberry. It’s a dwarf blueberry that we’ve taken out of dirt and put into hydroponics. Just one of the new plants.