Last month I posted a list of recommended blogs by and for Christian women. At the end of the post I made a parenthetical remark that many of the blogs I follow had gone cold in recent months. A short time later I received an email from three women who blog: Hannah Anderson, Courtney Reissig, and Megan Hill. They asked if they could speak to the issue, and I was glad to have them do so. Here are their thoughts on blogs gone cold.

TRUE SUCCESS (HANNAH ANDERSON)

Back in August, Tim Challies posted a helpful list of theological blogs by and for women. At the end, he noted that several blogs had “gone cold,” questioning when and whether the writers would return. As a female theological blogger myself, I smiled and thought, “Of course, they have.”

There are many reasons that blogs go cold—neglect, attrition, or simply a lack of focus—but  one reason that conservative female bloggers struggle to publish consistently is because we tend to blog outside organized ministry while our male counterparts write from within it. Certainly, not every male theological blogger is employed in ministry, but many do serve as full-time pastors, directors of para-church organizations, seminary professors, and students preparing for a theological career. You don’t find many male engineers, doctors, mathematicians, or police officers blogging in this same niche.

On the other hand, the majority of conservative female bloggers do not blog from a ministry context. Rarely are they employed by a church; they are not even pursuing a “career” in this field. By and large, they are lay women—homemakers, teachers, graphic designers, and writers who simply have an aptitude and interest in theology. …

A TIME FOR EVERYTHING (COURNEY REISSIG)

For me, there is no other place where I feel the limitations of my varying seasons like writing. While both genders are constrained by their seasons, women are confronted with it more acutely. So much of our writing in the blogosphere is born out of our life experiences, and though helpful, there are some life experiences that do not afford the time needed to write about them (i.e. small children, pregnancy, caring for aging parents, etc.).

I tend to view my writing life as cyclical. It ebbs and flows with the reality of my daily life. I think many young moms feel the same way. But it isn’t just limited to young moms. As a new wife working a full-time job, I actually found less time to write than I currently do as a stay-at-home mom. I have heard of women serving in ministry full-time who also have to work side jobs to pay the bills. These situations also do not lend themselves to writing opportunities.

When we consider why women are not always at the forefront in the blogosphere, it is helpful to note that while many women feel gifted and called to write, there are a myriad of other daily responsibilities that also require their full attention. Even if they are compelled to write out of their experience, those very experiences keep them from putting the proverbial pen to paper. …

WARM, NOT COLD (MEGAN HILL)

I received a new book in the mail.  I read it.  I thought about it. I wrote a post on my blog.

It took me a year.

Why do women’s blogs go cold? I suspect that sometimes they don’t go cold so much as they go warm—their burners turned down to low, slow-cooker-style, while a thought or an experience bastes in the juices, to emerge tender and flavorful after a time.

But the blogosphere is better suited to value-meal burgers than twelve-hour pot roasts.  Leslie Leyland Fields describes the frenzy familiar to every writer in the digital age:  “So here we all are hunched over in emergency mode every day, madly chopping and grinding, tossing posts and articles and reviews out into the void. We’re generating twice as much content as we used to, in half the time.”

This pace, daunting for the most unencumbered single man, is killing for multi-tasking women trying to balance it all. As Charity Singleton Craig, co-author of the forthcoming On Being a Writer observed, “I need… allowances in my writing life to make room for the fluctuations stress brings and to keep myself from cracking.” …

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