This summer I was talking to a friend about blogging. Both of us had blogged regularly back in the 2010s. Is that how you write that? At any rate, neither of us had blogged for years and as we discussed it, realized I missed it.
When I was blogging in 2018-2019, I struggled to figure out how to manage the time I had to write. I was still debating writing a book for teaching. I wrote articles on the regular for Choice Literary. I had begun to make tentative steps to writing a romance book. And I blogged. When I sat down with the small writing time I actually had, I never knew what "writing" I should actually work on. Whatever it was, I always felt like I'd picked incorrectly.
Flash forward three years since I last posted here. I've published seven romance books under the pen name Kat Ryan and am working on an eighth, and that is where the majority of my writing energy goes. I love writing something that has nothing to do with teaching. I love crafting a newsletter for my subscribers each month where I shine a light on things I loved that month. There's so much negativity in the world, my newsletter and my romance books are my way of trying to bring some bright spots to others.
So why jump back to blogging? Honestly, even though I missed it, I didn't think it was something that would fit into my writing life time-wise until I saw a social media post from my friend, Tony. He basically posts one social media post a week. There's a little text and three pictures: a pic of the week, a book of the week, and a song of the week. I love it.
My commitment for anyone that wants to follow along on my foray back into writing blogs is this: One posts a week with a picture and some type of reflection. You can find today's picture above, the reflection below.
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Today I headed to my classroom to get it set up. Once the shell of my room is ready, I can take the next three to four weeks for me without the stress of telling myself I need to do "x." As I placed some tables where they needed to be, I looked up to see my cardboard cutout of Jason Momoa watching over the room.
When I published my first romance book back in 2021, my friend Cindy sent me this guy from Amazon. My hero, Max, was loosely based on Momoa. Cindy sent it to me for laughs and, once I messaged her my thanks, I wondered what to do with this giant cut out.
After thinking for a minute, I decided to bring him into my classroom. Surely seventh graders would get a kick out of it. And boy was I right. Momoa has become a talking point for every class since. My favorite comment was two years ago from a girl that joined our class midyear. I was sitting by her desk one day, reassuring her that moving to a new school would, indeed, get easier.
"D" looked at me, then moved her head to look at Momoa. With all the sarcasm a thirteen year old can muster, she said, "You ever going to tell me why that dude is in here just staring at us?"
Ahh, bless. So Momoa is there, just waiting for our year to being. And I'm now at home, furiously working on book eight so I can focus on my seventh graders in just a few short weeks.
It's good to be back.
