I have a confession to make.

I’ve been cheating on you. Having an affair.

Yes, it’s true. I’ve been writing blog posts on Medium for the last year or so, lured there by the prospect of making money and reaching a broader audience. And yeah, that happened. Sort of. I made enough money to buy myself a few bottles of wine every month, and found some new readers.

But I got sick of it.

Medium is a great site, and there’s all kinds of interesting articles there, and solid stuff on all aspects of writing. It’s totally worth it to spend five bucks a month for a membership so you can read as many as you want. But what I’ve seen happening is that the writers I follow now talk a whole lot less about writing and a whole lot more about writing on Medium. Gaming the system so you can make more money. And so on and so forth.

That makes me anxious. It makes me feel like I’m not doing enough, that I should be writing at least one Medium article a day. And then if you want to get your article on more eyes, you need to submit it to a publication. And if they don’t like your topic or the way you’ve formatted your article, they reject you. And that makes me pissed off. It is all a frantic hamster wheel that I want to step off of.

I’ve found myself wanting to write what I want, when I want. I’ve found myself not wanting to worry how much money I’ll earn off the post I’m writing. I’ve found myself wanting to return to my poor, neglected blog.

And so here I am, crawling back to my first true love, begging for forgiveness. Yeah, I know. Blogging is dead, yadda, yadda, yadda. But I don’t care. I still see plenty of thriving blogs on the internet–I think it is just that the way we connect is different now. We use social media instead of commenting, for the most part. And that’s okay with me–but so is leaving a comment if you feel like it.

I won’t blame you if you refuse to welcome me back. But I sure will be happy if you do. Because I’ve got some plans for 2020, yes I do. More regular blog posts, as mentioned, a new freebie, and maybe even, gasp, a couple of info products or classes. I’ll also start working on updating pages and eventually, a sorely-needed redesign. So stay tuned.

And in the meantime, another way to connect with me is through my weekly newsletter. It’s a love letter on various aspects of writing and writing inspiration, mostly the latter, and I also include links to cool articles and books. You can sign up here–I’d love to have you.

Or, if you’re interested in my workshops at home and abroad, check out my Let’s Go Write site. We have workshops coming up in England and France–and for those of you who live in Portland, we offer retreats pretty much on a monthly basis. Check it all out here. (That website is in the process of being re-designed so bear with us if its wonky for a bit.)

So, thanks for reading and Happy New Year to you! Let’s make 2020 a great one, despite what’s going on in the world.