I'm conflicted by this whole blog thing. I've started blogs before, and then let them lapse into stale antiquity from neglect.
Maybe I just need a journal. I don't have a cute kid to blog about, and my life is pretty uneventful so it's not like I need an online forum to keep everyone abreast of my many comings-and-goings-about-town. And I definitely don't need one more place in my life to rant about things that make me crazy.
So then I'm just left with commenting on things that strike me as unusual, or commenting on other people's blog entries that I find entertaining. It becomes a spiral of commentary on someone else's commentary on someone else's commentary and, after a while, gets so diluted there's no point to remembering the original commentary.
I've been thinking about getting a pet rat, mostly because I'm allergic to cats and freaked out by the all-consuming neediness of dogs. And rats actually respond to their owners, and can bond and be affectionate like cats and dogs. But I don't want this blog to become a daily recitation of what my pet rat did and how funny it was when he fell off the chair, and how cute he is when he stands on his hind legs and sniffs the air. It's fun to hear about my nieces and nephews in those ways, because they're people I love and care about. But no one wants to hear about a rat. Not even me.
So this blog...well, I don't know what to do about it. I like being able to communicate with people once in a while, but I probably wouldn't be able to write anything intensely personal or meaningful, and the idea of just having a place to write sardonic commentary on random things doesn't seem that interesting to me lately.
So here's what I'm wondering:
1) Why do you blog?
2) Do you have different blogs for different audiences (i.e., a more personal site vs. a hobby site)
3) Do you think my main problem in blogging is just not having much of a life to talk about?
Thank you in advance for your input.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
Hm. Blogging motivation... that's actually tougher to answer than one might think.
My blog was a Christmas gift from a IT-guy friend of mine, who registered a domain, set up the backend stuff, and hosts the site for me on his own server. (To answer one of your questions, it is the only one I have. I don't manage to find the time to write everything I want to there, let alone on multiple blogs!) I didn't know what to do with a blog at first either, and actually didn't even make my first entry for a couple of months. Even now, several years on, I still struggle with the whole question of "what am I doing?"
Oftentimes, I do feel like I'm just linking to other people's stuff and that there's no value in that. But I'm also climbing up on my soap box and ranting about the stuff that bugs me, and sharing things that excite me with anyone who may be interested, and letting distant friends know that I'm still alive and (more or less) what I'm up to, and sometimes -- once in a blue moon -- I feel like I even manage to write something that's actually worth reading. For me, the most rewarding aspects of having a blog have been those moments when people I went to high school or even elementary school with have stumbled across it and emailed me to say hi, as well as making a couple of "blog pals" who I've never met in the flesh, but who like my writing and hang around the site.
Because of stuff like that, I've lately been thinking of the blog as a sort of conversation I'm having with the world, or at least the tiny portion of it that gives a damn about some insignificant nobody like me. I just write about or link to the things that I personally find interesting, so I guess it's sort of a journal for me, although I do tend to avoid discussing really personal stuff and day-to-day minutiae.
When I blog, the audience I have in mind is my friends, and as such, I assume they do care about things like my pets or my hobbies or whatever. I imagine we're in a diner somewhere just catching up and shooting the shit. And if it turns out that my readers really don't care about the things I'm blathering on about, well, I don't have to their eyes glazing over on the other side of the table... :)
Is any of that helpful? I honestly can't tell...
(And for the record, I've never known anyone with a pet rat, so I, at least, would be interested in reading about what that's like... but then I'm weird!)
Doh! I meant to say "I don't have to see their eyes glazing over on the other side of the table..."
I started blogging with a specific theme in mind, but soon realized that it was not sustainable. The blog is ostensibly about my life, which happens to be a fairly interesting one... at times. For long intervals, there is nothing to write about, and I lack talent, eloquence and/or pretentious profoundness to bs my way out of a "nothing to write about" situation.
So I come up with gimmicks, be it internet wasters, YouTube videos, reviews of movies and books, etc. And I regularly face blog-istential crises of the type you describe...
As a direct answer to your questions:
1) I blog for my family - especially my parents - and friends, who live on a different continent these days; I know around a dozen people who "stay in touch" with me through my blog. (I also secretly hope that one day there would be a breakthrough and I can parlay my little blog into an alternative career... Nah!!!)
2) I have a sub-site for formal travel notes on the places that we visit, but it is less of a blog than a directory. Other than that, my stream of consciousness is not strong enough to support multiple blogs...
3) It is certainly a problem for me, at times. I wouldn't be surprised if that is true for you, as well. (As a disclaimer: I knew absolutely nothing about you twenty minutes ago, before I read Jason's blog (I'm one of his three loyal readers and hopefully one of those blog pals that he mentions); I still know practically nothing about you, so my last supposition is not meant as a sage analysis, only as an idle observation based on my own experience).
How about this? I'm putting your blog into my aggregator - giving you another tiny incentive to go on :-)
Hmmm...good questions. My blog has turned into a baby blog, and although I knew it would go that way eventually that isn't why I started it. It was mostly because I had some stuff rolling around in my head without a convenient outlet, the kind of stuff that would come up in a good gab session that lasts for several hours, the kind that cover any and every topic. I don't have many opportunities for conversations like that these days, and it seems odd to write movie reviews and "I saw the coolest thing the other day" in my journal, and it's not the kind of thing I'd email to everyone, so a blog seemed like the best outlet.
I think best in writing anyway, so writing this stuff down is satisfying to me and gets it out of my head. And friends and family can read it if they want and ignore it if they don't. I can put it out there without bugging anyone directly or expecting a response like I would with an email.
And, with Atty's stuff, it's a way of updating everyone who cares so I don't have to call everyone with updates or answer the same questions over and over again. That's definitely a plus.
I don't put my most intimate thoughts out there, and I'm a little embarrassed for people who do. I'm honest in what I do put out there, but I'm not going to post when I'm weepy and depressed or tell the world about conflicts with James. (Especially now that the whole Relief Society has my blog address.)
As for your blog, I like to hear about what you're doing or books you're reading etc. I see you so rarely even though we live so close, and it's nice to have some kind of contact with you that way. I find your entries entertaining, but that's not the primary reason I visit. It's more a keeping-in-touch thing, and I don't care if you do interesting things, I just like to know how you're doing.
Thank you so much for all your comments. They were interesting to read, and very insightful, as well.
I think I put a lot of pressure on myself to make this blog something amazing, which is really silly when I think about it logically.
Your viewpoints helped a lot.
Thanks again!
Erin :)
Post a Comment