When The Fairy Well Runs Dry

What’s a blogger to do when she writes a blog about fairy tales and she’s run out of fairy tales?

Photo by Filipe Delgado on Pexels.com

The obvious answer is—don’t be silly, there’s always more. Between “lost stories” of world cultures and the tons of retellings, I should have plenty to comment on.

The writerly answer is—well, you write your own. An excellent notion except I’m already working on three books at the moment and likely will be until the end of the year.

The tougher answer is—change the topic. Not an easy proposition when your blog is named Fairytale Feminista.

It’s time to cobble together a solution, which I’ve decided is to take some of the stress off my fairy tales and let my writer woes do some of the heavy lifting. In other words, I won't just post fairy tale posts, but also some of my writing journey now that I've started a whole new project.

I hope you’ll come along for this ride.

The Little Blogger that Could

A lot of ink (and RAM space) has been spent on writer’s block of some sort or another. There are also plenty of techniques people swear by, from writing prompts to mindful walking. Each writer has to figure out what works best. But I’ve yet to see anything about what to do about blogger’s block. Bloggers are told time and again that besides finding a topic to write about, consistency is the key to creating a meaningful social network presence. If you post every day, then (kudos to you for having that kind of stamina) for better or worse you have to keep that up. That’s a rather demanding demand, doubly so if you’re also working on other writing and a day job. When I waded into the blogging waters, I knew every day was too much to ask. I only started, reluctantly, because I learned it was the best way to reach potential readers for my fiction work. So, I limited myself to once a week. Slowly (sometimes painfully) I built up a modest following. Yet even with that small ask, there are days I draw a blank. I focus on fairy tales, but sometimes there isn’t anything I want to say about it. Blogger burnout is a very real thing and there’s no proscribed fix for it. But I’ve found my own fix. Posts like this one. Readers do like consistency and a topic to follow, but I find that they also like honesty. The occasional post that veers from a topic will be forgiven if you share something honest about your posting—things you enjoy, struggles with your writing, and even current affairs if you can do so authentically. I won’t lie. It doesn’t always work and then you may have to try plan C—revisit a topic with a fresh perspective. Or even asking someone else to write it for you—there’s no fresher perspective than someone else’s point of view! For now, I have another week’s reprieve. And there’s another post done 😊