To blog or not to blog, that is, indeed, the question. I can think of lots of reasons to blog, chief among them raising my profile so that when my bizarre and hideous book is published there will be a ready-made audience of desperate people, just gagging to read it.
I can also think of lots of reasons not to blog. I have a bizarre and hideous book that needs completing, and blogging will just take yet more time out of my day, making it harder to sit down and write.
I have no idea at all how I ever managed to hold down a full-time job, but I did, and sustained what could be described as a career for some time. At that time I was also raising children (and, occasionally, bread), who are time-hungry little beings. Yet I still managed to write short stories, poems and articles for my own personal amusement.
And here I am today. I stand before you (or, at least, before this glowing screen), proudly salary-free. Also, proudly child-free: kids in Queensland can't possibly count. It is, in fact, a truth universally acknowledged that I must have plenty of time available to me at this stage of my life for writing, yes?
No. Not a chance.
All the interests I have now, I had when I was raising children, and running around earning money. But now, with no career or family to slide the other stuff around, I get up in the morning and every hour of my day is accounted for until I go back to bed. I often don't find time to work on my book, in a given day. So how can I possibly find time to blog?
This is the same conversation I have with my doctor. She wants me to find time to exercise: others want me to find time to blog. It's about time I acted on my long-term goal to become Dictator of the World. Then, as dictator, I will be able to decree a fifty-six hour day, and the speed of the earth's rotation will have no choice but to comply. Perhaps under those conditions, I will have time for everything.
(Self-referential photograph inserted for my own amusement)
