There was an Interesting debate on Windows Weekly a few weeks ago in which Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott and Mary-Jo Foley briefly touched upon what it means to be a blogger. (Oh, and is it just me, or is Windows Weekly just not the same now?)
Anyhow, according to Leo, blogging is an obsession - and not always a healthy one. Speaking for myself, I don’t know whether ‘obsession’ is the right word, but it’s certainly a labour of love.
I think it’s important not to hang on too tightly. I’ve always made a point of only blogging when I feel like it. If blogging becomes a chore, what’s the point?
According to Leo, any self-respecting blogger sweats over their posts, is surgically attached to their computer keyboard, and dwells over what they have written (to the point of getting up in the middle of the night to correct an erroneous post). Casting a quick glance around the UK blawgosphere (which is starting to look a bit frayed around the edges – let’s be honest), I can’t see many of us doing that.
But it does beg the question: do you worry about your performance as a blogger? Do you start getting the willies if your blog traffic starts to fall?
I do. I have crazy anxiety about my blogging, or lack there of. Geez, I tell myself, it's a hobby, not the next Great American Novel. But I care. I don't blog all the time... because well, I'm busy. And I'm not obsessive... much.
ReplyDeleteGo on, do tell which blogs are frayed around the edges!
ReplyDeleteCowgirl - Caring has got to be a good thing when it comes to blogging.. and I guess we all care (to varying degrees) else we wouldn't bother.
ReplyDeleteI'm 'very OCD' when it comes to spam comments on my blog... I like nuking those suckers the second they slip by the spam filter.
John - Way too many to mention... I'd say most of the studenty type blogs in my blogroll that were so prevalent in last 2-3 years. And that's just for starters ...
You and Charon seem to have no problem keeping the pace up I notice. What's your secret? ;-)
My blog is driven by fear.
ReplyDeleteI find myself quite obsessed with the number of page views I get for my blogs. But now I'm starting to think that my page view count isn't accurate as the number of views keeps rising without me putting up any new posts. More importantly, Blogger doesn't have any referring URLs or referring sites or search keywords to explain the rise in views either!
ReplyDeleteIn terms of blog posting though, I only do it whenever I feel like it or if an important result has occurred (seeing as my blog is a sports one). I'm not obsessed with how regular my posts are, I blog for the enjoyment rather than for money after all!
This is interesting. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteWhen I started I was trying to write every day to get my posts up, and then I just got busy. Now I'm a bit over it and just blogging when I feel like it. I realised that as a student I don't really do anything too interesting and I don't want to put anything too personal on my blog, especially as I eventually hope to put it on my resume.
ReplyDeleteNeed to enjoy blogging and commenting, supposed to be fun, if lose the fun, do it less to regain enjoyment again, this will produce better posts...
ReplyDeleteShenR - I think we all learn not to be swayed too much by our traffic stats. It's easy to be over-sensitive at first.
ReplyDeleteBrooke - that sounded horribly like a spam comment but I see you're on my blogroll. :p So it's me who should be thanking you... for visiting! :-)
Obiter Girl - we all go through that phase... back in the early days I'd get terrible pangs of guilt if I didn't pump out a blog post every couple of days or so (or whatever target I'd set myself). As I said in the post, after a while you learn not to hang on so tightly. After all, life's too short, eh? :-)
CP - nice sentiment... so much so I deleted your comment & re-posted it without the link. Don't spam me buster! ;-)
"Obsession"? Addiction more like
ReplyDeleteJotP - I think it definitely is with you! :p
ReplyDeleteYou put even CharonQC to shame with your posting frequency! Good stuff, sir. Long may it continue! ;-)