“Blogging seems to be one of those things where we tentatively dip our toes in the water, and either end up totally wet or we move on to other things.”
I lifted that from a blog I was just looking at. The author wrote those words roughly two years ago. She wrote two more times after that—February 2008 and May 2008. Then nothing. I guess she moved on to other things. I found her site listed on a blogroll of North Carolina blogs. It was a long list. I went down the whole thing and visited each site. I’d say not one in 10 had current content. In fact, most hadn’t been touched in years.
Some of the blogs on that list were pure junk, really bad writing, really bad ideas, and some of it written by wing nuts. But others on that list had some absolutely gorgeous writing, or thought-provoking subjects, or interesting points of view. Sadly, looks like they also have few readers.
So what’s the better way for a blog to die? From neglect, where the author just lets the whole exercise fall by the wayside? Or where the writer creates something that should be seen but never is and it dies from want of attention?
On one hand, blogging is easy. Just about anyone can do it. The proof being that I started two blogs this weekend. I’m not the biggest technical idiot in the world, but I’m definitely also not the savviest. Some of this stuff takes me a little time to figure out, but it is very nearly idiot proof.
On the other hand, having the discipline to write something on a regular basis seems to be the hard part. I’m only three days into this whole experiment and I’m already wondering if I have enough to write about consistently.
I’m getting ready to add myself to that blog roll of NC bloggers. I just hope in two years someone isn’t looking at my blog wondering why it died.
The aggravating thing about those blogs that Try and Die ™ quickly is that they never go away. Like that list of NC blogs: if the old and dead ones would just disappear after some reasonable expiration date (like maybe a few months), the remaining and current ones might could get more/better attention.
But the old and dead blogs stay on the Internet indefinitely, and stay on blogrolls forever, and the real, active blogs get lost in the mess.
By: Bullgrit on September 7, 2009
at 7:54 pm
I have a few blogs I like to read regularly, and those are the ones where I think the writer just loves the process of writing and it shows. I have a feeling this is going to be one of those blogs.
Then there is my sister-in-law’s blog, which drives me crazy for persistent TMI. What bugs me about her blog is that she never exhibits the internal editor tendencies that I think help keep content relevant and enjoyable. She often writes “sigh” in her postings…what a downer! It feels like I’m reading her personal diary when I look at her blog. And yet she’s been driven to keep writing for years now.
I wonder if the way to keep a blog going is to be confident in your ability to write/talk about anything. And you should have that confidence. I would read just about anything you write, especially since you aren’t given to writing *sigh* every other word.
And I know I’m not alone.
I’ll try to be more than just a lurker and comment from time to time, but sometimes it is just nice to read well-crafted and relevant stuph. Now I know where to get another fix…
By: thejauntydog on September 13, 2009
at 1:49 pm