Is This The End?

When I first developed Green Woman Comes Knocking, my intent was to use the blog to chronicle my creative life in all of it's messy glory.

The Green Woman, some of you may remember, came from a short piece of fiction I had written years ago in which I was confronted with a rather annoyed faery (my own, feminine version of the old Green Man myth) who wanted me to stop being a dunce and start using the talents and gifts I had been given.  The Green Woman was sort of a personal faery guide, or conscious, or inspiration, or entry into an artistic life...Jiminy Cricket with a major attitude, a wicked sense of humor, and the ability to be maid, mother or crone as the need be....both me and not me, my opposite.  Thus, the blog name....for this was to be what happened when inspiration came knocking and I actually answered the door.

I was a bit late to the knitting blog game, and it quickly became apparent that I was never going to be the next great Yarn Harlot.  I didn't have the drive to be so hyper focused on one specific craft...nor did I think I had the ability to keep a single subject entertaining (both for myself as a writer and for the audience).  There are, after all and unfortunately many, many very boring knitting blogs out there.  Heck, I LOVE to talk about knitting, but even I recognize that only goes so far.  Likewise, I didn't have the sort of technical skill to write detailed entries about specific techniques.  There are some very talented writers out there who'd already covered that in excruciating detail anyway!  

So, I expanded a little bit.

I included family life - sharing birthdays, anniversaries, holidays and vacations.  I soon found that family members relied on those posts to keep up with our family, so they became a more regular fixture...like it or not.  (Wasn't this supposed to be about me?)

I included my journey towards better health - the good, bad and ugly of it recognizing that my truth is that my entire life is highly intertwined with my health.  When the allergy diagnosis came, it signaled a big shift...and honestly, I've not recovered from that.  (I get sick of talking about this stuff, too.)

I tried weekly goal lists - which were probably a bit too optimistic in scope and left many of my readers gasping in horror.  (Seriously....the lists were crazy.)

I made a brief attempt to chronicle things I found inspirational.  (Ugh.)

I began to add my monthly reading list - and, well, it quickly became one of my favorite features.  (Thank you to everyone who's told me they've loved a book because of my lists!)

Recently I attempted to add in a weekly gratitude list.  It didn't stick.  (Desperate attempt to pull myself out of the mud...)

The point is, I pretty much did whatever felt right at the time.  Along the way, I completely lost focus...which is ok if what you want is a personal diary sort of blog, but I never made that distinction.

To add insult to injury, my knitting life - the only real creativity I've lived for the last few years - has undergone some major changes since last summer.  No longer do I have multiple projects going at once.  Where I once averaged 7 projects on the needles at any given time - giving me plenty of blog fodder - I've dropped now to only one or two projects at a time.  Generally they include something major and a pair of socks. Wee.  As much as I may be enjoying and personally benefiting from that major project (the scrapbook blanket, the Princess shawl....to name two) it does get rather dull to constantly be trying to find something - ANYTHING - to say about them that I haven't said before.  If I don't want to write about it....for sure you don't want to read about it!

I would be lying if I didn't mention that I do actually understand what is going on with me right now....why I feel so stagnant....why my creative life feels so empty.  My apologies, it's not for public consumption.  For now, just know that I do know myself quite well and have taken steps to make things better.

So what happens next?

Do I shut the blog down?

Do I keep going as I have been...hoping that it'll pull out of the slump eventually?

Do I take some time off, refocus, try to figure out what I really want my blog to do and then start again?

The answer is....I'm not sure.

So there you have it.  The Green Woman's gone missing...and I'm a bit lost without her.