…and I’m seriously bummed. My blogging routine has suddenly come unstuck. Instead of starting fresh at the beginning of a new month, I’m faced with a bunch of irritating new conditions:
- BlogHer has been sold to another company, one that is much more intrusive. I can’t log in with G+ the way I used to. Instead, I have to sign up directly with the new company and give them access to a lot more information than the stand-alone BlogHer required.
- The new parent company spams–several email messages a day, every day. Ick! Needless to say, I quickly unsubscribed!
- They’ve discontinued the monthly NaBloPoMo blogging challenges, replacing them with a single annual challenge in November, and something they call BlogHer Writing Lab. While I never quite managed to blog every day for 30 days, I found that the ongoing challenges kept me motivated. The Writing Lab, and its associated BlogHer University, have some interesting articles, and I may drop in once in a while. Beyond that, it’s not really what I need for motivation.
- I used to enjoy the blogrolls, and found many new bloggers that I enjoyed reading. While there were lots of foodies and homeschool craft bloggers and mommybloggers, there were also a few tech bloggers and artists and fiber addicts and serious readers. Now, most of the serious bloggers seem to have disappeared. To replace the monthly blogrolls, there is now a Facebook group. I DO NOT NEED ANY MORE FACEBOOK GROUPS!
Now, I’m looking for another source of inspiration. I’m making a list of sources for writing and photography prompts. I’ve joined a couple of reading challenges (see the sidebar), but haven’t been able to find much else. Oh, there are lots of parenting blog groups, but my writing doesn’t fit there (my kids all have four legs). And I’ve found a couple of diet/nutrition blog groups, but I don’t fit there, either (my five major food groups are grease/sugar/salt/garlic/chocolate). And I’m in two business-related blog groups, but they are too heavily concentrated on advertising and monetization for my taste (since I’m easing toward retirement).
Guess I’m on my own for this blogging year.
Photo credit: web cam at the Janus Museum, 2010
(Photo links to Rudyard Kipling’s “The Cat Who Walked By Himself.”)
