How to Restart a Blog
- Kate Lewis
- Jan 31, 2025
- 5 min read
Updated: May 20, 2025
“Let’s clear off the cobwebs,” C would instruct us at the beginning of every choir practice.
We’d proceed to spend the next 20 minutes of class cleaning the corners of our homes. We’d scale up and down the stairs, tracing the edges until everything felt polished and smooth.
I always liked that cobweb metaphor. It embraces the shadows. It gave me a sense of autonomy. When I sang, my body remembered it was a refuge worth filling with sound, even when it shook.
The first step to restarting a blog is to write.
Awkwardly, at first. Pick up ideas and put them down. Gather kindling. See what takes to the flame. Write a draft about why you stopped writing. Write a draft about how you have nothing to write about. Stare at the wall and pray for patience.
Then, one day, when you’re adjusting the font size on a slide deck and thinking about moving to Canada, the words will come back and you’ll tear up a little and then you will know: it’s time.
“I think one of us should listen to RFK Jr.’s hearing and report back,” J tells me.
“I vote you,” I reply.
Sometimes, I feel like J & I are the last two sane people in NYC, and that the HQ for reality is our shared office on the fourth floor. Our view is from the outside of Manhattan, looking in. In between meetings, we take turns questioning what the hell is going on, and then we compare notes. We are tired. We take breaks often. We sigh a lot. We continue. He is more seasoned in the art of living, more practical. But I’m a quick study.
“I’ll read some articles tonight and will tell you the bullet points tomorrow,” He says. The best thing about J is that I have no doubt he will.
The second step to restarting a blog is to commit.
Think of a goal and make a promise to yourself that you’ll see it through. It doesn’t need to be a grand declaration. In fact, I think you should make it little and precious, like a seashell. Or a button. Or that spinning thing in Inception. Something weighted and undeniably yours. Put your promise in your pocket and carry it home.
Following through is an important step in creating anything, and a hard one, if stability wasn’t modeled for you. If safe and steady behavior feels foreign to your nervous system, then you’ll want to jump ship as soon as you leave the dock.
You’ll feel the salt air press against your sails, sweeping and wide, and it will feel good at first. But because it's so new, it may also trigger a false alarm. You’ll know it’s false because you won’t feel open inside. Your ego will start making excuses with increasing urgency. It will cry, "Help! Go back! It's not safe!" and will wave you back to shore.
Resist the temptation to sabotage your journey. Hold your promise close. Stay the course.
“I think some people are trees,” I tell K over Zoom. It is 10am on a cold Sunday in December, which means it’s 1,000 degrees in my pre-war NYC apartment.
K does not bat an eye at my comment. It’s good to have people like that on your team. “How are some people trees?” She asks.
“Like, some people are deep homes. They shelter you. And some people are lavender, they calm you down. And some people are sunflowers, they’re like walking sunshine. And we all need each other, it all interconnects.”
What I’m trying to convey to her is an appreciation— a recognition that we are not separate. We are nature itself, unfolding perfectly in our own time. It’s a simple thing, but sometimes I forget.
“What do you think you are?” She asks.
“I’m a rose. Because there are thorns on the outside, but there’s beauty there, too.” The answer came out a little too quickly— a rehearsed response, the product of an outworn internal script. Even as I said it, something felt off.
K says nothing. We sit in silence for a moment. The heat is working overtime, but I suddenly feel cold all over. I sit with the discomfort and watch it pass. Reality starts to sink in, and a question bubbles to the surface: what if I stopped defining myself by the idea that I am hard to love? What if I let her go?
“Actually, I don’t think I’m a rose,” I announce. “I don’t know anymore. What do you think I am?”
K pauses, then smiles. “I think you’re the Grand Canyon.”
The third step to restarting a blog is to dream.
Restarting a blog inherently implies that, for whatever reason, your last blog stopped. There's no shame in that. All projects have their own unique lifespan. But if you're starting again, it means you still have things you'd like to say, which requires a new home for your words to live. It involves an active re-imagining of how you want to express yourself today, now.
It also means patience, especially if you genuinely enjoy the process of writing. Which is very different than the process of using AI to write for you. I wrote and edited this piece over the course of a few days. I kept coming back to it, replacing a word here, cutting a sentence there. It's fun for me. I could've easily spent that time doomscrolling on social media, but I chose to invest in a dream instead. It's my own personal resistance.
Our society enables us to take shortcuts. We think we can shortcut the truth instead of face it, but it’s not going anywhere. Processed foods will keep making us sick. Climate change will continue to decimate communities. Overstimulation will keep distracting us from the fact we are deeply lonely.
The antidote is imagination. Give yourself permission to dream. Brainstorm new projects, take up new interests, practice new ways of being. You must consciously train your brain to wire new pathways and seek out new possibilities. (Btw, I can attest it’s much easier to do this when you’re clear on the inside, which means: clean foods, no alcohol, movement, meditation, rest, real community, and for most people, therapy.)
How will you ever learn resilience if you are afraid to clear the cobwebs? If you do not question what’s happening around you? If you continue to hold onto the old stories you tell yourself?
If your heart wants to restart a blog, what are you waiting for? Do it.
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