In February, we published a post entitled The State of Our Blog, wherein we examined what we saw at the time as the devolution of our blog from primarily original content to 75% memes or other weekly features. The gradual change was due, as we said at the time, to our fear of running out of things to blog about. Prior to our thirteen-month blogging hiatus from July 2010 until August 2011, it was not unusual for us to go more than a week, or even two, without a single post. Since our return, we’ve been very determined to blog consistently.
“Over the past five and a half months we’ve attracted a decent-sized following”, we said at the time, “and we are determined never to let [an extended hiatus] happen again. Therefore, our participation in memes, while it may not always inspire spontaneous posting of original content, encourages us to get into a frame of mind that facilitates active blogging.”
Last month, we published a mere thirty-four posts. This is the lowest we’ve dipped since December 2011, and a very far cry from the forty-six posts we published in March 2012. We haven’t been declining steadily by any means; this year the typical month saw an average of forty posts published, so thirty-four doesn’t seem particularly low by comparison. Even if it is, there’s no way to deduce from such numbers that our post count will continue to dip.
Still, it is worth examining the reasons for the decline. Flash Fiction Friday, one of our favorite memes, has been sporadic the last couple months. Rather than one post for each of the five Fridays this month, there were only two. Additionally we found ourselves with less time to write original posts to be published on Mondays; November saw only two such posts, Sometimes I Don’t Cum During Threesomes and Everyone Point at the Bitter Geek in the Corner. While both posts were well-written and worth a read, it’s still a shockingly small amount of non-meme content. At the same time, Saturday posts were nonexistent during the month of November – in fact, there have only been a few Saturday posts since before summer – so that’s an additional four posts we could have published in November but didn’t.
Another reason why our post count hasn’t broken forty since August may be because we’ve had a very sexually fulfilling autumn, beginning with a
threesome with M in September and culminating – so far, anyway – with a
threesome with Sexy Smile in November. While we’ve been sure to boast about our escapades, in some way our sexual adventures perhaps took away some of the pressure to be prolific bloggers or to do anything but phone it in. This reminds me of the aftermath of our first threesome in summer 2010. So life-changing and satisfying was the experience that we had no intention of resuming our blog. As I said in August 2011, virtually everything I’d ever done throughout the course of my sexual history I’d done for the purpose of having two women at once, and once we’d made it happen it occurred to me that we didn’t need to blog anymore.
Obviously this was an error in judgement on my part, as our blog has led us to do things we might not have done otherwise, including the aforementioned threesome with
Sexy Smile. Shuttering the blog permanently would have been a mistake; we have no intention of ever giving up this treasured and much-needed outlet. That being said, I don’t honestly think that the last few months of occasional non-monogamy has really had much to do with our lower post count, though I do believe that to an extent the shift from wanting to do it to actually doing it has in fact lessened the pressure.
So no, we aren’t going to stop blogging anytime soon. But there are some major changes in store. For starters, sometime after New Year’s Day we will probably take a short hiatus from blogging. As of yet we have no idea how short this hiatus will in fact be, but I imagine it could last anywhere from a couple days to a couple weeks. We’ve been blogging dilligently since late last year, typically posting something every day of the week but Saturday, and in some cases posting on Saturdays as well. During summer we even scheduled two weeks’ worth of posts in advance so that we could enjoy a family vacation without worrying about finding an open wi-fi network. Needless to say, this pace has been pretty harrowing, and a break is much-needed.
Beyond this hopefully brief hiatus, we will likely change our blogging habits. Don’t worry, we aren’t changing formats or anything of the sort. This will still be a sex blog. However, while it’s difficult to eplain precisely what will be changed, I can say for certain that we will not be blogging daily. We aren’t going to cease participation in any of the community-building memes in which we’ve been participating this year, though we are effectively ruling out participation every single week. Make no mistake, it’s been enjoyable having guaranteed new blog content every day of the week, but it can be a little bit stressful to realize that it’s two o’clock in the morning and we’ve yet to post anything for
The Naughty Hangout, or answer the
TMI Tuesday questions. Deliberately dialing back our meme participation will help us to avoid this problem.
More importantly, however, it will also enable us to publish a lot more spontaneous, original content: Fantasies, erotica, analysis of news stories, and even our random sexual musings. Don’t get me wrong, we have enjoyed the very breakneck pace at which we’ve blogged this year. We’re excited about seeing it through until the end of December in part because we can then say that we blogged near-daily for an entire calendar year. At the same time, we’ve also enjoyed participating in various memes, and interacting with a segment of the blogosphere that we otherwise might not. So, for the record, we are not ceasing our participation in memes. Limiting it, perhaps. Ceasing, though? No.
That’s about all there is to say. If you’ve read this far, we hope that we can count on you to stick around and see what we have to say in 2013. Perhaps by refocusing our blogging efforts we will find the time to once again be the very prolific blog commenters we once were.
-Jack
you two are always an inspiration even in introspection!
Makes sense to me. Post when you want, you shouldn’t feel pressured to get a post up in time for…whatever. Like you said, this is an outlet! Its supposed to be fun, not feel like a job.
I have admired your prolific posting since I discovered you earlier this year. Despite my best efforts I cannot attain the number of posts that you guys manage to, meme or no meme.
I was curious about your comments regarding not feeling the need to blog now that you have fulfilled your fantasies. It was because I was fulfilling my fantasies that I started this journey.
I have enjoyed each and every one of your posts and will be thrilled with whatever you can manage to post in 2013! I’ve always been in awe at the amazing amount of things you post. I hope dialing it back will give you the balance you’re looking for. And, most of all, I hope that I can help inspire a post or two in 2013 with some new sexy adventures!!
I hear you loud and clear, and I am of much the same mind. Now that I’m coming up on two years, I want to blog more of my journey without necessarily following the dictates of a meme and I also want to pay more attention to what others are saying, as my reading has slipped badly these last few months.
I will be slowing down quite a bit this month, since readership tends to be low with the holidays anyway. Next month will see much more original content rather than focus on memes. And a couple new projects will be started, such as a kinky version of Project365 on my Tumblr 🙂
~Kazi xxx
Makes good sense to me. I can certainly relate to not having good access to private internet!! I think in some ways you have turned this into a ‘job’. While your commitment is admirable, there is always the risk of things becoming lwss enjoyable.
Plus, your little one is growing up. Private time for naughty postings will only get more difficult until she gets to a certain age.
I certainly envy you your sexually satisfying Autumn, but I don’t begrudge it.
You commented a month or so ago how you’ve fallen behind on reading other people’s stuff. Cutting back your own postings might enable you to catch up a bit.
Thanks for keeping us posted!