So, when I started this blog about a year ago, it just seemed like “the thing to do.” I was launching my career as a freelance writer, and writers blog, right? I mean, I had been scribbling down random bits and pieces of my thoughts in my LJ account for years, but it wasn’t the sort of thing you could refer an editor or potential client to.

Turns out, this blog became a random collection of jumbled thoughts as well, and while I occasionally recycled a blog post as an article or writing sample, the thought of referring an editor or potential client to this morass of dyslexic, unproofed, hurried writing made me shudder. Also, as I picked up more paid writing gigs, I blogged less. Blogging can be cathartic, but I’ve yet to figure out how to make it profitable.

So over the past few weeks, I’ve been rethinking the premise of this blog. Actually, I’ve been rethinking a lot of things, taking a long, hard look at areas of my life that I’d like to improve. Things like spending more quality time with my kids. Investing more energy into studying the Bible. Being more intentional about reaching out to the people around me and becoming a force for good in the world, while finally, finally, getting my laundry under control! (Incongruous? Maybe.)

The problem? I am not the most naturally disciplined person in the world. My head-in-the-clouds personality, combined with the complete lack of tether my lifestyle provides (writing from home, on my own schedule, with maybe two hard and fast deadlines a month? Puh-lease!!!), has resulted in me drifting off into the ether more often than I’d like to admit, leaving my children to subsist off tangerines and peanut butter sandwiches while I think philosophical thoughts of deep social relevance that I do precious little about.

So…I bet you think I’m breaking the news that I’m retiring this blog, right?

WRONG!

It occurred to me the other day, as I was clicking through my favorite blogs for the third time that hour and bemoaning the fact that needed more accountability in my life (I have no boss, my friends are all too nice to me, and my kids, for the most part, would be just as happy to be left alone with their computer and a basket full of tangerines) that maybe writing MORE was the answer.

Counterintuitive, sure. But say one of my goals is to cook dinner with my eight-year-old every night. Left to myself, I’d likely spend that time staring at Facebook. But what if I blogged about the experience on weeknights? I mean, you’d be down with getting super-simple, nutritious recipes that even a domestically-challenged disaster like myself can throw together in no time flat, plus cute pictures of an eight-year-old boy in an apron, right?

Or Bible study. The idea of writing posts about what I’m learning from scripture has been dancing around in my head for a good two years now, but have I ever done anything about it? No. Because committing to that would FORCE me to get really serious about what I’m studying, and there would be no faking it if I wasn’t reading my Bible.

And that’s a bad thing???

I want to grow. I need accountability. And it seems to me that tying the things I’m trying to get better at to something I consider pure bliss (read: free-form writing) might give my land-locked passions a significant boost. Maybe the answer is not to reign my balloon in, to bring my runaway thoughts back to earth–maybe the answer is to tie those things that are important to me onto the ballast, stoke up the fire, and aim for the moon!

It would be a lot of work.

But it could also be a lot of fun.

And really, what’s wrong with a little hard work?

I’m going to be considering this over the next couple weeks. We’ll see what happens.