Even the most prolific writers experience dry spells. For those of us that find writing difficult even in the best of times, a dry spell can easily turn into a full-blown case of writer's block; such is state I've found myself these past several weeks. I can tell you when it began; the exact moment I felt crushed under the weight of my success; when half-written posts began piling up on my desk, all stuck in a cycle of endless edits waiting for the moment when they were finally "perfect".  It seems silly now, but it began simply enough. 

I was unable to answer a simple but fundamental blogging question, ‘how many readers do you have?’ I truly had no idea how many people were receiving RSS or email updates but based on the limited number of comments thus far, I assumed my audience was still very small. The GoDaddy representative was very patient as he explained what each report was designed to show and how to interpret the data.  I was totally unprepared to learn that over 4,000 people had subscribed to the blog's RSS feed and that's when the writer's block began. I felt I owed my readers more than I thought I was capable of delivering. Four weeks went by and still not a single post felt right.

A talented song writer I know says that (song) writers don't always get to write the song they want to write; sometimes they have to write the next song that needs to be written.  I've heard that line many times (it's on one of his CDs) but until recently I never appreciated the truth in it.  How does this figure into my blog and my writer's block?  David, if you're reading this, you should know that this isn't the article I intended to write, but it is the one that needed to be written.

April 23rd, I read an article in the Wall Street Journal titled Paid to Pitch: Product Reviews By Bloggers Draw Scrutiny. The article really upset me. I tried to ignore it. I couldn’t get it out of my mind and I couldn’t put it on the recycling pile either.  I tucked it in my tote bag and read it over and over again until finally I just “got it”.  The fact that I felt the weight of “journalistic” responsibility so viscerally as to cause writer’s block and that I found this article so disturbing told me what I needed to know: I have the desire to write and I have something even more important; I have the ethical and moral fiber to do “the right thing”.

There's one word that keeps coming to mind when I think about that article: transparency. Transparency may not solve everything, but I think it's a good start. I pledge to always tell you if I receive ANY kind of perk in connection to a post I write, a product I recommend or a product or service I review.

Now that I have that off my chest, you should know that nothing has stopped me from eating well! The writing may have stalled but I've tried a few new Gluten-Free restaurants, and my culinary muses have been working over-time. I will be serving up a new recipe to the members of the Writing Workshop I joined. That way I’ll be ready with a new Gluten-free goodie for the Cupcake Social 2.0 this Thursday. I’m looking forward to my first Meetup for Cupcakes take the Cake.

Look for pictures from the Meetup, and a new recipe next week. It feels good knowing I already have something to write about thus ending my “Dry-Spell”.