Amy “Open Book” Welborn has launched a brand spanking new blog called, simply, “Amy Welborn”. If you want to know why, here’s part of her explanation:

Because it takes a lot of time and energy that you just can’t see. There’s this cumulative expectation, built up over the years, that my blog had to be a certain kind of comprehensive Catholic blog, etc., etc. It’s something I envisioned myself at the very beginning, but then gradually tried to back off from, and actually grew to try to cast off – over the years – really from about 2004. Careful readers will see that over the past year I have really been trying to move away from that: posting less frequently, opening comments less, etc.

I wrote three books this year, so obviously I can work and blog at the same time, but I also know that that type of blogging (which feeds my curious, newsgathering personality) takes a lot away from the quality of writing. Yes, The Agent loved the YA novel and is trying to sell it, and yes, the editors at OSV and WAU press like what I wrote for them, but I just really know, in my own soul, that I can do better. That I can dig deeper – but I can’t do it while responding to the volume of email that I get, searching for links to balance out a particular story, feeling guilty about not linking, because I just don’t have time to be constantly searching them out, to all the great Catholic blogs that are out there that you really should be visiting, and so on. I want to do good, and I want to do lasting good – the kind of good that people carry around, share, put on their bookshelves and reflect on – rather than the kind of good that sparks a momentary flash until we surf to the next website and the next and the next. I like it all, but the energy I put into this is just too much, considering what I want to try to accomplish elsewhere.

A CLEAN BREAK was called for.

I’ll add her new blog to my blogroll soon. She says she plans to keep Open Book up and running for a bit.

Meantime, wander over to the new place and look around. It still has that neat “new blog” smell, and the paint isn’t dry, but it looks nice and inviting.