Lights Out

I think it's time to turn out the lights on the blog. It's just not doing anything for me any more, and if my hit counts are correct, it's not doing a whole lot for the rest of you, either.

It was an interesting three years.

*click*

Update: I'm really touched. Thank you. Unfortunately, I am serious about this, at least for now. I don't know if any of you noticed, but this summer I've been fighting an absolutely enormous case of writer's block. Trying to include the blog in the effort has simply been too much. The things I want or need to write about now are not things that can be included in the blog (for reasons of anonymity, partly, but also because the blog post format does not work for what I'm trying to do) and the things that are bloggable are either no longer interesting to me, or are taking up energy and time that needs to go to the more important projects. So partly this is a move of desperation - I absolutely have to get past this, and right now the blog is far more a hindrance than a help. So much so, in fact, that blogging itself has come to feel like a chore, and no longer fun.

So, I'm setting it aside for now. If it helps, you can think of this as a sabbatical of indefinite length. I'll still be around in blogland, leaving comments; I'll just not be blogging while doing so. My email is also not going away, if you need something more one-on-one.

Again, thanks for your readership, support, and interest.

Comments

[Lauren]

No!

[New Kid on the Hallway]

Oh, no! I'll miss you, Rana! I understand completely if it doesn't do anything for you anymore, but you're one of the pillars of my blogworld!

(And I'm sorry I haven't commented on your recent photos, which I think are spectacularly beautiful.)

Take care of yourself and be well!

[Jill Smith]

Oh, Rana - I'm sorry if that's the case.

I hope we can keep in touch in less blogly ways...

[jo(e)]

WHAT? For real?

Oh, Rana.

[wolfa]

Take care, Rana.

[Pilgrim/Heretic]

Oh... it really did do a great deal for me, Rana. There were so many times you put into words so beautifully things that I felt as an undercurrent but couldn't quite express; so many times that you captured entirely new ideas and brought them to my attention. I'll miss that very much.

As New Kid says, I hope we can keep in touch. Take care.

[Scrivener]

Rana, I hope this is actually a decision about the blog and not more about other life pressurs that have temporarily sapped your blogging energy. I don't know if that sentence makes sense, but I'll trust that you can figure out what I mean.

I'll miss you! Feel free to come back anytime!

[PZ Myers]

Hey, wait a minute! I read it all through the rss feed -- don't cut me off!

[Angry Pregnant Lawyer]

I'll miss you and your blog.

[Phantom Scribbler]

I'm sorry, and I'm sorry to see you go. I will miss you.

[Lance Mannion]

NO! NO! NO!

Unless you are closing down shop to write a book that will include the kind of nature writing I come here for. Otherwise...

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

[KathyR]

Well, I'm leaving the feed reader plugged in, just in case.

[profgrrrrl]

Another avid RSS reader here -- just a little too overwhelmed by beginning of semester to comment, but I so love your photos and your beautiful posts. You will be missed.

[dale]

Oh. We'll miss you. Thank you for the three years, in any case. & Wishing you all the best.

xoxo

[Jane Dark]

Rana, I'll miss you. I'm sorry I haven't been around much, lately. Like Lance said, I hope this means more time for the book.

[dean dad]

Godspeed, Rana.

[jo(e)]

There are 92 of us who subscribe to you through bloglines -- should you change your mind and decide to write a post at some time in the future ....

I guess I am in denial. I came back here today to see if this post was still here, hoping maybe I had imagined it.

I've been reading your blog since before I had a blog of my own. I will really, really miss you.

[Pilgrim/Heretic]

I'm having the same reaction as jo(e), checking back to see if it's true. I just remembered... I came to blogging indirectly via New Kid, but yours was the first blog I came to regularly that was written by someone I didn't know; in other words, the first I read and got hooked on entirely for its own sake. I have great respect and admiration for your writing & look forward hopefully to seeing it again, in whatever form it may take.

[YourFireAnt]

I just got here. And loved the photographs you have here. Please don't stop yet.

Fire Ant

[yankee,transferred]

I hear you. I go back and forth all the time between continuing and quitting. I hope your decision feels right. You'll be missed.

[Pronoia]

I'm forty-seconding what everyone else has said--I read you regularly through RSS, and I will miss you terribly.

[Jane Dark]

My bloglines says that the site was updated on Sept. 12th and 8:12 a.m., but no matter how many times I refresh, I can't seem to pull up anything more recent than yesterday's post. Like P/H and
jo(e), I keep expecting this to turn out not to be real.

At least tell us whether you'll still be around the bar occasionally? Or commenting elsewhere?

Please?

Even at those times when you only posted quizzes, you were still one of my best sources for the quizzes that were out there. My point: the blog has more effects than you know.

[Amanda]

I'll miss you, too. You were one of the first people whose blogs I looked at and thought "Hey, I want to do that too!" I hope you change your mind, but if not, keep writing elsewhere, okay?

[Scrivener]

I agree with everyone above, even the earlier me who commented yesterday.

Just wanted to reiterate that we here don't hold to any of this mindless sticking to proclamations, so if next week or next month or three months from now or whatever, you've got the urge to post something, you know we'll be happy to read it. Don't feel some weird sense that you're honor-bound to stay away because you said you are quitting. Ok?

[Pilgrim/Heretic]

Or if you don't want to start the blog back up but want to toss out a post now and then, you're welcome to come guest-blog at the bar anytime!