5 Things To Do When The Words Just Won’t Come

2017 was our first holiday season as bloggers.  Boy, did we screw it up!

Oh how excited we were to write posts about getting our homes ready for the glorious weeks surrounding Thanksgiving and Christmas.  We were running at such a good pace!  We even boasted, during our last week of published posts, that we would break away from the Christmas ideas for a week and do some interior design content as to not overwhelm with all the Fa la la.

Kristen was getting married and doing that honeymoon thing.  We both planned on stockpiling a few really good posts to allow us time with families over the holidays.  I even thought I would have “extra” time to write some of the posts that are in limbo. You other bloggers know which ones these are…..the ones that are just on the cusps of being great!

Then we both got sick.

To say the bad boy is lingering is an understatement.

So, after missing 2 scheduled posts, we had to make an executive decision. I eked out our last published post on December 22 . With the help of some of our blogger friends, who always keep us inspired with their food blogs, we managed to let our loyal readers know we were going on a holiday hiatus. The break lasted until today. (Our editor is laughing because she wanted us to add a date of return to that last post.  Apparently being on your death bed is not a valid leave of absence for her!)  Goodness, what a way to totally miss our first blog holiday!

Here’s What We Learned During Our, Viral Induced, Writer’s Block

1. We can share the posts of our blogger friends that inspire us throughout the year.  If we enjoy a post, so will our readers.  It’s nice to be able to introduce our readers to other fantastic bloggers.
2. Let the readers know when we will take a break.  Again, I am sorry we did not alert you to what was happening sooner.  We are honored, and now humbled, that so many look forward to our posts.  We tried to answer each thoughtful email and comment and thank you for them immensely.
3. Trying to write a quick post to meet our own predetermined schedule is nuts. The post will be “caca”.  You, our readers, are too important to us to do this. Because so many of our posts are inspired by our clients requests, we owe it to everyone to only publish our very best content.
4. Social media can be unsociable when necessary.  Oooooh…did we just say that? Our firm, and this blog, uses Tumbler, Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, LinkedIn, and Reddit as extensions that are aimed to route traffic to the website. Therefore, when we don’t have a post, our social media is stagnant.  Instagram and Pinterest do offer some info varied from our blog posts and as we started back in this last week with some content, our followers were happy to jump right back in.
5. Lastly, the most important thing we’ve learned with our unplanned absence is that it’s been a blessing in disguise.  Once we let everyone know what was happening, readers kept checking in.  Google searches were steady, Pinterest referrals and pins saved increased and new subscribers decided to follow littleblackdomicile.com.  Readers to the site used the archives to find something of interest in our absence.  Our sincere thank you to all of you.

Back To The New Norm

So off we head into this wonderful new year.  Our goals for the content, and future of this blog, will be the same as when we started. We will share what inspires us as designers. We will address the problems you share with us and offer options to help you create a home that works for you.

We will make one slight change.  The next time the words for a post don’t come, or in many cases, just don’t make it on that silly self imposed schedule, we will look back and review the valuable lesson you all taught us during this “Holiday” hiatus.  Our readers visit our site for quality posts written with intention and sincerity.  It’s ok if this takes a little more time.

Next Time You Have A Few Extra Minutes

One way we are going to be more intentional is to continue to update our Littleblackdomicile Pinterest Boards . In 2018 we will continue the transfer of our thousands of archived photos. We are even hoping to add notes to as many as we can to show why we saved a particular photo.  We invite you to click on the link, or photo above, and see more of what inspires us on our Pinterest page.

Yes, very true.  Interior design is not going to bring world peace, cure cancer, or ensure everyone is happy all the time.  Yet, our homes are indeed the shelter from every type of storm the world can throw at us.  Good, bad and even ugly, these conglomerations of various building materials make up our happiest places.  It is our wish for everyone, in this upcoming year, that our abodes are the perfect LBD’s for each of us. Mine for me, you for yours….

Thank you to all our readers who really did make this period of writer’s block the very best of times.

Happy Motivational Monday!

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