The Hiatus is Over

All I knew was I wanted to be a blogger.

I had finally moved from Blogspot to WordPress, secured my own domain, and gone full-force into creating high-quality, original, useful content for my future readers. I wanted a place where I could share my gifts and do what I do best. For a while, I was pretty sure I could make UnsweetenedDarjeeling.com my part-time job. It felt like it was meant to be.

But something happened. In the midst of my frenzied hyper-focused determination to grow my online platform, something broke and everything suddenly stopped.

Just as I thought I was finally ready to pick up some speed, I realized my creative life had collapsed into an all-time low.

So, I quit everything.

What was UnsweetenedDarjeeling.com supposed to be?

I had been studying blogging as hard as I could in my spare time. 2020, of course, was a major trigger. It was time to change something. My blog had been on the backburner simmering for years. Now, I wanted it to become something in my life. I was ready to start making moves.

As an author, the most obvious direction to take would be to write about writing. Along with your typical writing tips and how-to posts, I also dropped the occasional essay about the deeper parts of the creative life. It all came pretty easily. After all, this was what I knew most about. This was my area of expertise. I needed to establish myself as an expert in my community, right?

Maybe if I looked like I knew what I was talking about, they would want to read my books.

Slowly losing my mind all of a sudden

Actually, it wasn’t the blog that did it to me.

It was social media. Surprise, surprise.

In the Fall of ’22, I realized my Instagram schedule and attempts to promote my blog through that means were starting to give me both figurative and literal headaches. I was thinking about it all the time. I was doing everything I knew how to promote my blog and my books through online social networking. But I was starting to lose interest in everything. The blog felt heavy and dull—another of way too many things I had to keep afloat to not get left behind.

But I needed to keep up. I needed to keep posting, keep commenting, keep connecting and grasping at every opportunity to get noticed in my online circles. My traffic remained almost non-existent. I couldn’t do enough. I should be posting more reels. I should be posting every day.

And even with my mind demanding constant action, I would still find myself looking up and realizing I hadn’t posted anything in a week or more. Other authors could keep their Instagram stories running around the clock. What was I supposed to share? What did I even have worth sharing? Why would anybody want to read my blog or my books if they didn’t even want to read my IG posts?

I wasn’t like the other indie authors I watched. They were on every day, they had developed real friendships with each other, they knew all the book-bloggers and could run 20-stop blog tours every time they released a new book. I still don’t know how they set exact book-release dates a whole year in advance. They were so organized, focused, connected, capable.

I wasn’t even writing anymore.  

The fear of losing it all

But I couldn’t stop. I had to try harder. If I just didn’t give up—if I just kept being a faithful steward of what I had been given, just kept my motives pure and my jaw set, eventually the breakthrough would come. I would get into the rhythm and find my people. My blog would thrive. I was just too impatient. It took years. I just wasn’t trusting. I was stifling my own message. I wasn’t believing in my purpose.

I wasn’t sure I actually had a purpose anymore. But I knew you should never give up. And in the social media world, you can’t disappear—not even for a few days, or you won’t be relevant anymore. They’ll forget you.

You’ll lose all your progress. People will move on. Curtain call. You burned your only chance.

Nobody was going to read my blog. Nobody needed my expertise. All these authors knew what they were doing. They knew better than I did. And if they didn’t read my blog, they wouldn’t take a chance on my books.

I needed to take a break. The stress was getting to my head.

The Hiatus Part 1: Christmas Break ’22

In October of 2022, I decided I was going to log off until January. Just a little break. I wanted to enjoy my holidays if I could. I just needed to stop thinking about it all for a while. I would come back a few weeks into the New Year all refreshed and raring to go. I needed to plan an exciting comeback.

The final months of ’22 were uneventful. I’d like to say I learned to be nicer to myself and got perspective on my true vision and self-worth during that time, but mainly I just ignored all that stuff and put it off for January to worry about. But January came around faster than it had the year before.

The Hiatus Part 2: Quitting IG and Burning Bridges

I got back on Instagram in January, prepared as I would ever be—ready to get back into business and back in touch with my circle of friends and followers. As soon as I logged on, I knew I couldn’t do it anymore.

Remember how Instagram used to be? Flatlays and filters and stuff? I liked that. I liked photography. When it started out, it was fun and fairly spontaneous for me. I didn’t really have any expectations for interaction or growth. It was also cool when I wasn’t following very many people. Obviously, I’m missing the whole point of social media. You’re supposed to use it to network and keep up with all the important people in your niche.

Suddenly, last January, I realized I hated Instagram. I hated keeping up. I couldn’t keep up. I was miles behind and out of breath already. So, I posted a final carousel explaining and left.

I told everyone all my online activity would go silent until…sometime in the future. Except my email list. That would be the only definite way to keep in touch until then. I had almost 300 followers on Instagram when I quit. Seven joined the list.

The Hiatus Part 3: Drifting and Finishing Dronefall 5

It didn’t feel like the right thing to do, after all the years I had spent trying to build my platform. For a few months, I lurked as a ghost online. Had anybody sent me a DM on Instagram? Were people unfollowing? Commenting on old posts not realizing my account was no longer active?

What was new with my author circle? Who was releasing books? Should I be buying them? I should still be supporting them, right? Wow…they’re all doing so well. Good for them…not giving up.

It was an addiction. And it was still ruining my mind. I had to drop the internet altogether. I shut everything out and focused on finishing writing Dronefall 5—only to discover I had come to hate my own writing. It didn’t matter. I had to write anyway. And I did.

I finished the first draft in the second week of May. Mindrise took longer to write than probably any novel I’ve finished since my debut works. Clicking in the final end-mark and hitting save, my first thoughts were, “Worst book ever. Finished though.”

I then went to bed. 

The Hiatus Part 4: Summer and New Dreams

Not living on Mercury is nice for several reasons, but one is we have season-changes here. I like those. Though summer isn’t my favorite time of year, I’ve come to appreciate it and let it inspire me to launch off into new things. I had a new book to write (Dronefall 6), and I wanted to learn to love writing again.

And also, I wanted to be a blogger.

That’s why I’m back.

What I Learned:

UnsweetenedDarjeeling.com is a work in progress. It’s going to keep evolving. But I think I finally learned something extremely important. I learned who my target audience is—or, rather, who they are not.

I never should have assumed my target audience was other authors. I’m really not an expert. I’m not a teacher or a coach. I’m an entertainer.

My audience isn’t that circle I’ve been trying to break into for so many years. Most of them don’t even read my genre, and I normally don’t read theirs. I’m not writing my book to impress other writers. I don’t want to get caught in a closed community of people reviewing each other’s books.

My new audience is whoever is odd enough to actually love my actual art. I want to show people the beautiful things I see in my mind and share the joy they bring me. People need to see beautiful things. They need to read stories that captivate and intrigue them. They need to notice details of life they overlooked and feel feelings that remind them they are alive and here for a reason.

If my work does any of those things for you, you’re my new target audience. Thanks for reading. I’m excited to know you exist.

What’s Next?

I’ve got three more posts ready to tell the story of the new UnsweetenedDarjeeling.com. I want to talk more specifically about my thoughts and discoveries concerning social media and why I quit. I’ll go into more detail on that in the next post.

I’ll follow that up with a post about what’s happened to my positions on how my creative life and my faith life fit together—and how I believe God uses artists even if they don’t preach or use their art to bring attention to hot-button issues.

 To wrap up this new beginning series, I’ll do a post all about the exciting things you have to look forward to on UD. Preview: you’re going to be reading a lot less of these essay-type posts in the future. There will be serialized short-fiction, art-heavy posts, poetry, humorous rants, and interesting project updates. Details to come!

Two Favors

Before you go, would you consider doing one, or maybe even two favors for me?

First is a major one: no, I won’t be returning to social media in person. So, if you have a platform of your own, would you consider sharing the news that this blog is back from the dead? People might even thank you later. Who knows who might end up loving this blog. Every single visitor I get here in the beginning is a huge deal to me, so thank you so much if you choose to help spread the word.

Second is easy: if you read all the way to the end of this post, you deserve to plant a flag at the summit. Consider the comment section below a guest-book or a graffiti-covered bench. If all you want to say is “(your name) was here” do exactly that.

Even you, totally random stranger who for some reason stumbled across my blog and are wondering why you read this far. Even if this post is four years old. You’re here for a reason. Please sign in.

Thank you.