Remembering The Words: Look Who’s Blogging Again

In 1999, when people still listened to entire albums, I knew every song on The Chicks “Fly” CD. I was seventeen then and I haven’t listened to that album since. 

Track number seven is a song called, Don’t Waste Your Heart which I saw after I downloaded it the other day. I didn’t remember the song. I couldn’t have told you how it went when I clicked play, only that when I did, I remembered the words.

Don’t waste your heart on a wild thing, she’s got a soul that won’t settle on one thing—ooh, this bird can’t sing, when you’ve tied its wings, don’t waste your heart on me. 

Remembering how to blog is like that. I can’t quite remember how it goes. But then the music starts and the words come back. 

In the last four years, I’ve been to a writing retreat in New York, got accepted to a book proposal bootcamp with Lysa TerKeurst, wrote a book proposal and then re-wrote a book proposal, submitted to a few magazines, worked with editors, basically wrote a whole book, and grew my Instagram. This, because you need a platform if you want to publish with the bigger houses. You also need one if you want to publish with a smaller house. You also need one if you want an agent. I went agent hunting the other day and under every single profile, I read the same thing: “we are looking to work with authors with strong platforms.”

In the last four years, I’ve learned writing and the business of publishing a book are two very different things. 

If you want to publish a book you have to think about growth and performance and standing out. You have to fight for and keep people’s attention. And for that, you have to produce work that people want to share—constantly.

But I kind of hate being cognizant of that.

You know what I miss? Blogging about my day. Writing to whoever wants to read about some life lesson or my morning routine. I miss writing about nothing and everything, without thinking “is this serving my reader?” or “what value am I adding?” Not that these aren’t great questions for a writer. It’s just, at a certain point, it hinders me more than helps. 

I can’t think about these things all the time. Because when I do, the magic of writing is gone.

I just want to share my life—valuable or not. Because I believe when we share our lives, there is always value. The blogs I used to read like Enjoying the Small Things and Momastery—do you know what they wrote about at the peak of their online success right before the book deal? Everyday life. 

We all did. We wrote about what we had for dinner the night before. What our sisters baby shower was like. What we learned about life from some article we read. The blogs were all “hey, my kid said something really funny…” and “I wanted to share my trip to Michigan” and “here’s the recipe for those scones I was telling you about.”

Everyone wrote about normal things. What they were wrestling with or finding beauty in. And I couldn’t wait to read.

Why? The value. 

Back when blog reading was a big thing, each of my mornings started the same way. I’d get the kids breakfast, pour a cup of coffee, and then settle in for a leisurely hour of reading blogs. Every single week day I did this. To see what was going on in everyone’s lives. What they were working on. What they were up to. Sometimes it was profound. Sometimes it was entertaining. Sometimes the posts were long and sometimes they were very, very short. Sometimes it was about noting at all. But mostly, it was about ordinary things.

This casual quality—sharing the big and the small—is why I wanted to write in the first place. Or, more accurately, what I did write in the first place. And I want to go back to that.

You know what I want to do? I want to make gnocchi in herbed Pomodoro sauce and share the recipe because it’s outrageous and I believe it might change your life. I want to sit in the sun and read a book and then tell you about it. I want to brew hot tea and sit at my computer and share whatever little thing comes to mind without rules. Without wondering if anyone will share it, or like it, or if it will help build that all important platform. 

I want my normal, beautiful life back.

I may be a little rusty, but the music is playing again. And I think I’ll remember the words.

Welcome back to my blog, friends. I’ve missed you and I look forward to writing and sharing here again. I’m making it a weekly discipline to publish here. Sometimes I’ll write you a few times a week, and others only once. I like to keep things open and see what happens. 

I’d be delighted if you joined me.

xo

One last note for the my ride or dies before I sign off: all my old “Krysta’s Life in Food” posts are now archived here, so you can find any recipe you might have missed from back in the day! The search bar is the best way. If you’re not a ride or die, go ahead and search any food you can think of and I probably have a recipe for it. When you were a food blogger for five years, you build up a nice bounty.

Cheers to spring—and new life.