Today, dear reader, is the 11th anniversary of my blog. Holy smokes! How did that happen? Tempus certainly does fugit.
Usually on my anniversary post I’ll create a list of favorite blog posts, but, frankly, I’m not in the mood to do that. (I do love being the boss of me. I only have to write what I’m in the mood to write.) These “favorite posts” posts are getting a little old. So I thought I’d wander down a different path entirely this year.
I’m not someone who enjoys writing “how to” blog posts. I figure they are a dime a dozen, for starters. And whenever I see one of those, or a “list post” (The top 10 things not to say to your____________, for example), I think, “That blogger is trying to up his or her statistics in order to make more money.” It doesn’t seem sincere to me. It seems a little lazy, desperate and exploitative.
If you’re interested, there are plenty of bloggers who will be more than happy to tell you how to start a blog or how to make money by blogging, and they will give you a list of do’s and don’ts before you get started. All of this is fine and dandy, but they rarely talk about what it’s like to be a blogger. So that’s where I’m going today.
After all these years, and after having written 3,573 posts so far, I think I can speak with a certain amount of modest authority about the feel of it. But before I do, I should tell you that my motivation has never been to make money through this blog, or to seek some sort of fame. No. I write this blog because I love to write. I also do it to keep from going insane with boredom at my day job, which is opening drawbridges when the occasional tall vessel happens by. (Actually, that’s a gross oversimplification, but you get the idea.)
But I’m coming to realize that my primary reason for blogging is so that I can be heard. As a bridgetender who works alone, as an introvert, as a woman (and even worse, an overweight older woman), and as a person on the autism spectrum, I am rarely heard. I’m hardly even seen. Frankly, unless invisibility happens to be an advantage at that particular moment, it sucks.
I’m not saying I want to be the center of attention. And I definitely do not want to speak to masses of people. (No fear of that, though. This blog has an extremely modest reach.) I just want to be heard. I like to imagine one person reading what I write. It feels intimate to me.
I especially like to write about things that people rarely speak about, because I believe that all of us feel as though we are weird, deep down. Because of that, we derive a great deal of comfort on the rare occasion that we come across someone who feels the same weird way that we do on certain subjects. I hope that, by reading my blog, people take comfort in knowing that they are not alone.
As I write these posts, I think of them as messages in bottles, floating on a cyber sea. I hope that one day they will reach the very person who needs validation at the very moment when they need it. And once in a blue moon I know this has happened, because I’ve been contacted by people who say so. That makes this blog worthwhile.
Having said that, I must admit that I have a love/hate relationship with this whole endeavor. It comes with an equal amount of rewards and penalties. On the days when the penalties seem overwhelming, I’m tempted to forget the whole thing and move on. I wish I knew how to quit you, my blog.
But blogging is a huge part of my identity now. When I’m not blogging, I’m often thinking about things that I could blog about. I’ve lost a significant amount of sleep writing blogs in my head. And I can’t forget the many friends I’ve made along the way, who have broadened my horizons and bolstered me during the rough patches, and made me laugh during the smooth ones.
But blogs are a lot of work. And if you plan to post regularly as I always have, you begin to feel an enormous amount of pressure to keep up the pace and grind out content. I don’t quite know how they do it, but blogs gain a certain momentum and seem to have lives of their own, and you may begin to feel as though you’re trying to keep up with a conveyor belt that will never stop for any reason. It’s exhausting.
And trust me, writer’s block will happen. Like it or not, there will be times when you’re staring at a blank screen and the knowledge that a deadline is looming will have your stomach in knots. I’ve yet to miss a scheduled post up to this point, but I’ve often given a pound of flesh to make that happen.
I know a lot of my readers would say that it would be okay for me to take a break, but I don’t only do this for them. I do it for me. To be heard. To leave some sort of a legacy. To have the illusion of control in this chaotic world. And another big reason, as much as I hate to say it, is that I’m so darned bloody-minded that I refuse to let anyone see me commit the self-imposed unforgivable sin of missing a scheduled day.
Another thing to consider is the fact that writing a blog is a major time suck. If you’re planning on doing it full time and have no other job, or you have the luxury, as I do, of having a job where you can actually blog while on the clock, that’s one thing. But if I had to keep up with all of this on my free time (and I’d say I spend at least 24 hours a week to maintain a three day a week blog), I guarantee you that it wouldn’t be happening.
I will say that this blog has improved my writing skills tenfold. It has also allowed me to learn things about obscure topics that I’d never dive as deep into if it weren’t for the fact that I planned to write about them. And it helped convince Dear Husband to marry me, because he learned a lot about me by reading my posts. What a gift!
Sometimes you’ll get negative feedback about what you write. Trolls abound on the internet, and opinions can be polarizing. You might even pick up a stalker, as I briefly did. I can’t stress this enough: Moderate your comments. It’s your blog, and you have a right to curate its vibe. Hostility is something I try not to harbor on mine. Dissent is one thing. I’m cool with that. Name calling, intimidation, and threats are quite another.
Another danger is that of revealing too much of yourself. Over the years, that has been nearly impossible for me to avoid, because I have no filter. I’m pretty sure I haven’t provided you with my bank account or social security numbers, but other than that, I’m an open book. And with a last name as unique as mine, I wouldn’t be hard to find regardless. I just have to have faith that I’m not worth the effort to assault.
You can control what you write and what you publish. You can’t really control who will read it. And along with all you wonderful people, there are crazies out there.
If you blog for many years, you might look back at a post that you wrote long ago and be embarrassed that it exists. If so, take it down. But remember that you can’t erase the entire internet, so it may still be out there somewhere. (People aspiring to politics should avoid creating blog content. It might turn around and bite them in the behind one day.)
For those who want to create a blog in order to make money, be warned that the blogosphere is pretty saturated and competitive, and you’ll have to go to great lengths to stand out. You’ll have to think in terms of statistics, and ways to increase your readership and ways to get higher up in the search engines. You will have to become a marketer and a salesperson. At some point you’ll have to consider the lengths you’ll go to before you’ll feel as if you are selling out.
None of those things seem particularly palatable to me. I have enough stress in my life already. Because of that, I’ve never made a penny from this blog. I’ve never even tried, really, other than by promoting the one book that I actually managed to publish, mainly because I had a ton of help with the boring, non-writing bits. Turning this blog into business rather than pleasure is just not something that would make me happy.
I have never, ever wanted writing to feel like work. If I stop feeling joy when I write, I would lose the parts of my identity that I hold closest to my heart. I wouldn’t feel like myself anymore. That’s why, for me, this is not a business.
Instead, I am someone who likes to send messages in bottles.
Leave a Reply