I have met the most wonderful bloggers over the past five years five months. Though I complain about the comments that tired me of this, I have been the recipient of more incredible comments than any person has a right to receive. I thank you all.
I can’t do this anymore. I write because I love to write but writing is the least of blogging. I can’t focus on writing for publication when as a blogger I’m supposed to find “followers,” a word I hate as it sounds as if the follower should be holding my dress up. I couldn’t care less about my Alexa ranking. I lost my Google page rank “5” then got it back then lost it. Too confusing. I could never understand Google Analytics and leave that to the people who want to monetize their blogs.
According to Technorati, I have an authority of “1.” That would be an audience of one–me I think and is impossible but…I only looked because a friend looked at his. He still has a Technorati ranking.
I enjoy commenting on Facebook and a few blogs. I can’t spend hours a day reading and commenting on blogs. 3WW a word exercise I love took me over twelve hours, to both read other blogs and comment on them, and I wrote my post in 20 minutes. There’s no enjoyment or payback in that. (I love some of the blogs but the time spent….) If I were to do three or four word exercises it would take 36-48 hours out of my week. That’s a lot of writing I can be doing.
Something else–there are so many blogging groups and associations my head spins just thinking about them. Blogging has become too big for me. Should I spend money going to blogging conferences?
I can’t blog for Blog Critics, Technorati, to name a few and as I keep mentioning also write for real publication. And real publication, to me, has to mean something that pays actual money and not pennies.
People in other professions don’t give everything away. I know! I know! Anybody can write. And that’s true now. Anybody who has access to a computer can put words to screen. But do you want to read them all?
I will be keeping Courting going and weeding out “bad” posts. So people who care about things like Technorati don’t have to worry about losing my pitiful–I don’t even know what to call it.
I realize that I’m going against the grain and that I’m probably committing blogging hari kari. But anybody who knows me knows I’ve done that before.
I wish I could say it has been fun. I rue the day I found blog explosion and an audience though I wouldn’t trade the friends I have made….Even more I rue doing political blogging. That’s something best left to people who really don’t care about creative writing and I care very much.
Political blogging is best left to thick skinned people who enjoy getting comments telling them they’re mentally ill etc.
So I guess I’m starting from the beginning.
With a blog yet blogless, I leave it to all the people who love having pictures of people they might never ever have actually exchanged an email with on their blog theme. (The followers)
I will be writing more than ever. Just not here. If I change my mind and anybody who knows me knows I’m prone to that, please remind me that six years ago I was being published regularly. Major publications were asking me to re-submit.
Then I began a blog…..Nobody had heard of them. All my friends made fun of me but at first for a few months I loved it. I did. Then the nasty comments began and the fun ended.
I’m sorry if I sound like a spoiled bitch but I’m so tired of the blogging world.
This ad ended it for me. Just did. It was so crassly commercial. Most people who take that course won’t make two cents on a dollar expended for the course.
You know I agree, Pia. Drop by here and leave us something when you feel like blogging for fun’s sake. Blogging for readership is like street-corner preaching. Treatable.
Also, I assume that anyone with an opinion on what bloggers have to do or ought to do is no friend of yours. Bugger it, but stay in touch.
Yikes. Blogging for readers? Pia, I have never read anything you have written that felt like it was written for the sole purpose of being read. It was wonderful to read because it was “wonderful”. If it isn’t fun for you, if you don’t enjoy it, it is a job. ANYONE can have a job.
You are talented beyond words and you have so much to tell… you will do so in your own time and at your own leisure. Keep it for your own personal reasons.
You are loved.
Doug, SPS (never know what to call you but loving friend!) Thank you both for your support. I never blogged for readers. That was a benefit I didn’t anticipate. It became a burden when I began blogging 24/7 for two or more blogs
I never cared about comments. I knew people read. But I had to moderate political blogging comments and I hated that. Being known as a “rational” liberal as its downsides
I forgot my way and my own goals for too long. I have book(s) in me and yesterday, not for the first time I realized the time I spent blogging could have been spent editing the books I wrote and threw out
But I truly learned to write from blogging and so I thank everybody who has made such a big difference in my life
Right, right. Write your books. I enjoy your posts but I’m eager to buy your book. Let this be the break from that and if someone tells you you need to increase your blogging statistics, stab them in the belly and carve out their lungs.
Thanks Doug. I will. I or that alphawoman really redid the blog so it would look good while I didn’t add posts. Though I’m in love with the reply function and uh might have to post but very limited and no commenting on word exercises, no blogging for large blogs etc. It’s too exhausting for me
This book is too important to me. Way too important
I agree, though I’m probably one of the few my age. I think because I was blogging before most people my age and there is nothing new really just exaggerated more of the same old same old. I am just of the blog for fun and enjoy reading mode. Though remember in the meantime some people have made “blogging” their life. Not writing mind you just blogging or at least giving directions how to. lol
oh god Cooper the directions on how to live your life as brought to you by a 27 year old who just last year was in a zillion dollar debt, had kids without thinking and so on and so on. And it’s not PC to say “maybe you’re not the most brilliant or greatest role model” but to hang onto every word as if they’re Suze Orman–who I have problems with also
Thank you Cooper for being one of the shining lights. I will always read you because I’m addicted to your posts. They’re so wonderfully eclectic and you never care what people think. I probably should devote my life to being your PR agent or disciple but you want neither and that’s a bit of what makes you so great
Sorry for embarrassing you. I promised somebody I would 🙂 With good words
Blog when you want. People are always gonna read because you have such a unique way with words.
You know I will support anything you do, short of not finding me funny. I can’t support that. I have to draw the line somewhere.
Also, had it not been for BE, I would not have found you. Which may help explain your rueing thereof 🙂
Yeah Bone I rue BE because we met. I do!!!!!
Honestly you have become very important to my life and as long as you remain funny, you will have a place in my life.
You know I have very high humor standards so you have to remain very very funny and maybe even become funnier
Well I for one will miss your writing – even if I didn’t always read. I’ve had a love/hate affair with blogging for the last year too.
I would like to think your words will escape onto some platform somewhere in the future, but of course that’s your decision to take.
The idiotic marketing and analytical pissing competition that goes on at the moment with anything and everything on the internet is eroding the reason people took part in the beginning; real community with real people. In the end the money makers will fail, and the real people – people like you and I – will remain once more, and others will come.
I’m starting to preach, so I’ll shut up.
Hi Jonathan
I will always visit your blog. Your girls (all four including Wendy) have me hooked as does your pondering
I have no intention of giving up writing. I’m just too frustrated by what blogging’s become to continue blogging.
It’s one thing if you have a blog like power pop–on my blogroll–that’s a one subject blog by an established writer in his field. He can just write his posts, answer comments and have fun. But then there’s a truly great flash fiction writer who must participate in too many writing exercises to get feedback. And none of us really want “you’re so great.” We want feedback. I’ll take “you’re so great also, but I need more
For years blogging was a 24/7 venture for me and I made not a cent from it. I thought if you commented on personal blogs you got at least one comment back. I thought that was common decency and manners. But I realize many bloggers weren’t brought up to care about other people though they make big deals about their problems. Yes I did about mine but I hope I gave back…
Oh let me shut up….
I’ve been so busy I didn’t realize i missed this–Blogging ain’t about money. I put ads on my blog last January, thinking that I’d give my $ to local ministry that provides food for the poor–I’m still waiting for the check and when it comes, I’ll have made them $11 and some odd cents in a year of blogging–but again I don’t do it for the money. I do it to force myself to write and it’s nice to be read. We’ll be here when you come back and the next time I’m flying and stop at an airport bookstore to thumb through the magazines, I hope to see your name (I’ll be sure to buy the magazine!).
Thanks Sage. I love to write and love to be read. I have been thinking of writing when I feel like and closing comments. I guess it’s all the groups that get to me. I lost a lot of my readers due to my own need to do other things and it seems most found other blogs or groups. One group gives a writing assignment each week. If I want to do that, I want to be paid.
It’s frustrating as I began so “big” and dared to dream. I still dream but realize that blogging can only help me when I have a product to push or absolutely don’t care about being published and am just writing like you are–for the love of it