My mom has this theory.

If you never get rid of anything old, there would never be any room for anything new. I didn’t believe her until now. Those dichos from the old country, those nuggets of wisdom, they get lost in the translation between here and there.

I’ve out grown my blog and I’m torn up about it.

I’ve had WritingToInsanity.com for five years, since January 2008, and I remember the day I started it. It was during the crisis of 2008, when I turned 30. This was the year when I looked around me and all I could see was failure. Unhappy in a job that made me more unhappy (though I didn’t understand that at the time) in a place I never knew I didn’t want to live in until I got there. And yet…

And yet I did everything right. I did everything everyone had ever asked of me. I studied. I worked hard. I graduated. But I was so unhappy. That prompted me to think about when I was truly happy. When was the last time I was absolutely blissful?

That’s how WritingToInsanity.com started. I wanted to find my voice again, figure out who I really was, and what I really wanted. I knew I’d get there by doing two things: reading and writing.

So, I read and wrote. A lot. That’s when I discovered Junot Diaz and Roberto Bolano. That’s when I rediscovered Ana Menendez and Cristina Garcia. That’s when I finally finished my first book (it’s horrendous) and found myself a circle of writers who helped me become better. Eventually, I got good enough to be accepted into graduate school and wouldn’t you know it, I actually earned one of those writing degrees. I chronicled all that on my blog and a sense of freedom returned to me. Breath had returned to my body and my voice, which I worked so hard to suppress, was beginning to return.

As I grew stronger so did the blog. It gained a bit of popularity. It housed posts about t.v. writers and DIY writers and hosted writer interviews, some of who are my friends.  That little blog saw the creation of the Holiday Blog Tour and video blogs and podcasts. This was my baby, my creation, and no one was going to tell me what to write. Freedom. Complete blissful freedom.

Then something happened. I grew away from it. I didn’t want to write about writing anymore, I wanted to write about other things–issues that had become important to me, essays about my life. I wanted to tell stories, not write blog posts about writing stories, which is what the blog was becoming. I felt that if I was a writer, why was I writing about writing with little to show for it. Writers write. It’s disingenuous to tell people how to do it if you’re not doing it yourself. I don’t know about you but I learn best by example. Brilliant writing should exist as the lesson and the rest of us should take time in learning from it.

Again, writers write. I wanted, NEEDED, to write.

So, I committed blogging suicide. I stopped updating. Then I brainstormed about what I wanted to write. Seriously. I took myself to a coffee shop, wrote down a list and started the beginnings of what this site would become but always with the focus of telling stories. That’s what I hope to write here.

Right, so, if you look in the menu bar you’ll see the fruits of my coffee shop brainstorming. My commentary is there. Essays (which this post falls under) is right next to it. Travel writing has been an interest of mine so I’m going to give it a go. There’s a listing of my published work both in fiction and non-fiction, which I’ll be putting together soon. And finally, because it was five year of self-discovery and because there are things there that maybe useful, a link to WritingToInsanity.com, my baby.

This is not to say, of course, that I’m done writing about writing. I think some post will pop up just for old times sake. Those will be essays and of course be tagged (what else?) writing.

I’m proud of the work I did with the old spot. But all things must come to an end and this is one of them. Take out the old to make space for the new. Here’s the new space. Let’s fill it with a bunch of new adventures, shall we?