22/ Blogging is my Hobby

Hello there,

Yes, I'm running behind—but not that I haven't tried to get this newsletter out the door. This draft is my fifth try at it, and to get it done, I'm breaking it down into a few bite-sized pieces.

It was a busy month on the blog

I did a lot of writing this month. After saying that I wanted to slow down, I ended up writing eighteen new posts.

As well, if you checked-in halfway through the month, you might have noticed that the blog was down. I was doing an overhaul on my me@davidgane.com email, which lead me to discover I was paying for services that I wasn't using on my domain registrar. Then to untangle that mess, I moved to a completely different domain registrar. Things eventually were sorted out, but the process was a little frustrating.

Lastly, I added almost 400+ posts from old blogs I used to have. If you look in the archives, you'll find them, dating back to 2007.

As I started adding them, I was somewhat embarrassed but grew to appreciate how they reminded me where I came from as a writer, creator, teacher, and father.

The process also made me realize...

Blogging is my hobby

I've never really had a hobby. I used to do photography but tried turning it into a paying gig, which quickly made me realize I no longer wanted to do it. Likewise, I always like building things with wood, but it's not a consistent enough activity. I also enjoy walking, running, and weightlifting, but I never think of them as something I do for pleasure. But blogging, for some reason, seems to be the thing I return to all the time.

I love puttering around on the website, adding new material, changing the look, and trying out features. Now, it's operating at a much lower cost, so I don't feel as guilty about wasting money, and I genuinely find pleasure in sharing things on it.

I think it took me so long to figure this out because I always tried to monetize it for far too long. Thankfully, I was never good at making money with it, so it never became a job.

Also, it's a little place where I can share my thoughts that are all my own.

Looking ahead

Angie and I are finishing up our first draft of Shepherd's Call, our fourth book in the Shepherd & Wolfe series. We hope to have it to our editor by the end of March.

This one has taken a very long time, and I look forward to it being done.

After that, things are up in the air. We are talking about rolling into Book 5 immediately afterward, and I pitched a completely different idea to her last week, but I also want to do my own writing at the end of this month, once Book 4 is off my plate.

All I'm sure of is that writing is in my future.

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