Sunday, January 14, 2018

Val's Less-Than-Galorious Galaxy

I haven't been blogging a whole lot lately. I've been blogging so little that people are noticing.

Since my decline in post frequency was pointed out to me in December, I've been thinking about the reasons why I haven't been writing.

It's not because I don't love writing. Every time I start to tell a story, words start to gush like a fountain, digressions sprout like weeds, and I struggle to keep what I say down to an internet-approved length. But that's for my fashion blog. I can see that more of my writing energy has been directed there every year, rather than this blog. In fact, for those of you who like statistics (isn't that everybody!?), I'll quantify it for you.

Two line graphs showing the decline in posts every year at Val's Galorious Galaxy, and the stability of posts at The Unfashionista

Barring the first year of The Unfashionista, when I was first getting on my feet, I've posted a pretty steady average of around 86 fashion posts a year. Meanwhile, over at Val's Galorious Galaxy, the number has been gradually decreasing from 97 posts in 2012 to just 23 last year. Why did this happen!?

I've been keeping a steady pace on my fashion blog because I have a steady stream of things to write about. I wear a different outfit every day, and as long as there's something about it that I deem even marginally interesting, I churn out a few words and slap up a picture. My personal blog, which should, in theory, provide much more for me to write about, because it encompasses everything but fashion, is, meanwhile, languishing. Is this because I don't have anything to write about? What do I write about, anyway?

In the early days of my blog, it was basically a diary, in which I summarized the details of what was going on in my life: "Last week I took a vacation to California." "I spent a lot of money recently." "Someone used my stock photography on their website!" I also used it as a megaphone to share every thought that flitted through my empty head. "Should I get a new alarm clock?" (I still use that clock, but no longer to wake me up in the morning!) "Wow, the streets in DC are actually named according to a pattern!" "Here are seven things I was thinking about today."

Over time, I have discovered other media that work just as well for sharing my inane thoughts, chief among them: Twitter. Yes, when I can dash off three words (e.g. "Seagulls are great!") I no longer need to write an entire essay about the subject. Facebook is another platform that has supplanted my blog: Instead of writing long multi-part tales about my travels, I now just content myself to post a photo album on Facebook and caption it liberally. I also find, these days, that I spend less time writing about the banal details of my life and more time telling them to my friends, usually over Google chat, Snapchat, and the various other messaging apps I use from time to time...but still in the form of a conversation, not a monologue.

A lot of my older posts were what might be described as "whining." This type of post received so much attention in my blog that I made an entire category for self pity. This is not to say that I don't write about these kinds of things now—there will always be a place for complaining—but I increasingly prefer to keep my most personal issues personal, rather than broadcasting them WWW-wide. To illustrate my point, a few weeks ago, I sold my car. I'm now in the process of searching for a new one. I probably will blog about my decision and purchase when it happens, but what I won't blog about is the snit I got into last week about all the stupid red tape surrounding buying and selling vehicles, and how annoying it is that I have to keep paying for my insurance even though I don't have a car. For that, instead of ranting in my blog as I might have once, I ranted to my boyfriend (lucky guy!). Since I now have a close personal network, I no longer have to write about things like social failings and love and the lack thereof; I can use real people to help me sort through my emotions, and don't find it as necessary to air my grievances before the largely-unsympathetic internet.

In spite of my declining interest in using my blog as a personal therapist, in more recent years, I still resorted to writing for the biggest issues in my life: getting dogs, getting a house, dealing with said house once gotten. But after a few years, my existence has calmed down into a fairly predictable pattern: I go to work, I go home, I do fashion, and I do it all over again the next day. In short, I just don't have that much in my life that's exciting enough to blog about.

Now that's not to say that I have nothing to blog about, period. While I've deliberately retired two of my former biggest topics, Giant Cookie Reviews and MacaroniQuest, there will always be language and Adventures in Cooking. But if you've noticed that my blogging has decreased in frequency, you should know it's not something to be sad about. After conducting this scientific analysis of how Val's Galorious Galaxy has evolved over the years, I feel confident that my fewer posts are a good thing.

While this post started off as a way to help fill the void left by my infrequent blogging, and was inspired largely by guilt, it turned out to reveal a truth I actually feel pretty good about:

I'm blogging less because my life is better!

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