Tuesday, September 20, 2011

The Blogging Way

One might think it's been a rough time for blogs, lately.

Over the past few months I've seen some old favorite blogs disappear, and some continue a long decline into neglect and irrelevance. Some get abandoned entirely; others get a promising update, and then nothing but silence.

But you know, that's always the way blogs have been, and that's the way they always shall be. Because journals—or blogs, their online equivalent—are always in flux. It's an extension of the human lives they represent.

However, I was a little taken aback last month when one of my favorite long-term bloggers decided to quit the scene. He did so with a little hissy fit, essentially, in which he declared all his time spent blogging over the months and years a big old waste of time. Then he proceeded to blame his readers for not commenting enough to keep him happy, and being interested only in the photos he posted.

And then, because apparently he just wanted to pound every nail into the coffin that he could, he declared blogging dead and other bloggers to be idiots for continuing to do it.

Here's my thing. If you're done with blogging for a while, that's fine. Say so. Take a break. Stop altogether. Sex bloggers—those of us who don't do it for the advertising revenue, anyway—aren't making postings because we're getting a paycheck from it. We're not doing it as a public service. We do it because we enjoy it. If you're a blogger who's not enjoying it any longer, take a break. Life's too short for voluntary onerous tasks.

But you know, don't try to make the vast majority of your readers feel badly about having read you all along.

I'd like to make a few tips for would-be sex bloggers. I've been blogging publicly in one form or another for a good decade, now. I've got that right. Most of these comments apply to the men and women out there who are keeping largely text-based blogs . . . not those that post photos daily. They're a different beast entirely.

1. If you're a blogger, you're writer. So write.

I get a lot of people asking me to make links to their blogs. Generally I won't, if they've just started blogging. I've seen too many bloggers make a single entry, or two, and then just stop. If a person has been writing for a few weeks, or a month, and seems to be keeping the steam going, I'll consider it. A one-shot wonder with an interesting premise disappoints me. Someone who can keep presenting me with his or her world view—that's going to keep me interested.

I know that everyone has fertile writing periods, and then periods in which the muse doesn't strike as often. God, do I know that. But sometimes you have to have the discipline to keep writing, to sit down and let the words come. Your readers will drift away, otherwise.

They don't like reading that old entry from your very shallow archive for the fourth or fifth time. Sorry, but they don't. Apologizing about not making entries is fine when you've something for which to apologize, but when your blog has become nothing but excuses about not writing, it's time to do a reality check.

You might not be published. You might not care ever to be published. You might make punctuation errors, and grammatical mistakes, and have a sixth-grade education. But when you're committing to stories to paper, you're a writer. So write.

2. Be honest about what kind of blog you have, and why you're keeping it.

One of the things that bugged me about a long-favorite blog of mine—which purported to have aspirations to being lit-ra-chah, don't you know—was that although it was well-written and provocative, its owner was never very forthright about his intentions. Over and over again he'd disparage the photo-blogs—that is, the blogs in which pornographic photos were the main attraction—and say over and over again that his blog was about ideas, not pictures.

Then every single of his posts would have multiple photos, all pornographic, of men sucking and fucking. When his readers would respond to those, and not his essays, he'd be outraged.

I find that behavior kind of disingenuous. If you don't want to be a photo blog, simply don't post photos. Don't find the largest and most salacious photographs and amateur fuck flicks possible, post them, and expect men to ignore their presence. That's like bringing a case of Scotch to an AA meeting and drinking straight from one of the bottles, then wondering why you're get the hairy eyeball from everyone.

I'm also disturbed when I see blog writers with dollar signs in their eyes who have wild, impossible dreams about monetizing their blogs and becoming a wealthy internet entrepreneur in the process. If that's really want you want, sure. Go for it, I guess. But when readers get confused by your maze of advertising, self-promotion, and your endless ways of trying to turn yourself into a porn mogul, don't be surprised when those comments and visits start to dry up. Especially if you're not producing any actual content for them.

If you're a writer, write. Everything else, including visions of riches and vainglory, is just distraction.

3. For christsakes, nice to your readers.

I ran some statistics on my reader comments, over the weekend. I've had over seven thousand comments during the last year and a half. (That doesn't even count the thousands of private emails I've received.) Out of those comments, only about fifty have I found truly objectionable to the point that I've been curt to the poster, deleted the comment altogether, or never removed them from the spam folder into which they bounced.

Less than fifty, out of over seven thousand. That's less than half of a percent, overall. The other ninety-nine-point-five percent are great people who approach my journal in the spirit in which it's intended, and I'm grateful to interact with them.

Most sex blog readers are similarly enthusiastic. They're reading because they want to, entry after entry. I've seen some bloggers, however, who are pretty much one hundred percent rude and snarky to pretty much one hundred percent of their readers. I've seen one who asks for questions and complains when he doesn't get them, yet doesn't hesitate to call the questions 'stupid' when they arrive.

The blogger I mentioned at the beginning of this entry used to bitch and complain constantly about the lack of comments he'd get, even to the point of threatening not to blog any more if he didn't get them, stat. When his readers would hasten to provide comments, though, he'd rarely respond to them, or thank the readers for their contributions. Eventually I burned out on trying to keep him happy and stopped commenting altogether.

Occasionally there are going to be readers who are dicks, or who are deliberately confrontational. It makes little sense to pretend they're anything other than the pests they are. But if you have readers who are going out of their way to read you, to enjoy what you've written, and to add something interesting to the conversation, acknowledge them. Honor them, even. Don't call them stupid. Don't call them fatties. Don't treat them like they owe you anything more than standard decent courtesy and respect.

Or if you do, fine. Just don't be surprised when they stop commenting and when the visits dry up.

4. Be true to yourself.

If you think your strength is writing short little fictional stories to accompany some photos, awesome. If you like collecting news from around the web and commenting on it, I'm there with you, if you've got a sharp point of view. If you like writing about saving your marriage, or cheating on your mate, or finding love, or whoring around . . . I'll keep reading.

There's room for all kinds of stories to be told about our lives, and our imaginary lives. I enjoy absorbing all kinds of narratives. And if a blogger has his or her idiosyncrasies and inconsistencies, or even fears and faults, hey, that's great. I think it's brave when people show us their soft underbellies, and expose themselves as vulnerable. When people do that, it's a gift. Treat it as such.

What I don't like, though, are the bloggers who have an agenda to sell, or a persona to which they cling so desperately that you can hear their nails scraping. There are the bloggers who think that if they're controversial and peddle a brash sort of outrageous viewpoint, it'll be a shortcut to fame. If I see anyone choosing to describe himself as notorious, I tend to keep away. Usually he'll be trying to pander to a lowest common denominator, just for the hits.

Then there are the plaster saints, who do no wrong. I stumbled onto one of these blogs a few weeks ago and after seeing the same thing again and again, I had to stop reading the damned thing. I'm trying not to go into much detail here, but the blog is a mixture of photographs and prose in which the blogger shows himself indulging in his hobby—for the sake of obfuscation, let's say it's 'stamp collecting.' So the photos are all tastefully-shot, moodily-lit studies of him looking pensive and slightly mysterious as he indulges in nude philately. Oh, he'll wear an apron to protect himself from paper cuts. But the photos are an odd mix of 'stamp collecting' with naked butt thrown in.

And sometimes another young 'stamp collector' will come join him, and there'll be tasteful, moody photos of the two of them stamp-hounding together. Interspersed throughout the photos of the two of them side by side, flashing ass and stamps and mysterious smiles at each other, will be this text in which the two of them have conversations—about Life, and Love, and the blogger always ends up dispensing wisdom like he's Grandpa Walton sittin' on the front porch telling John-Boy the ways of the world. He's always wise, and right, and his companion is always young and naive (and usually Asian) and so grateful for the sapience of the (white) stamp collector. The whole thing occasionally gets so mawkish that I want to grind my teeth and yell, Dude, you're only TWENTY-TWO.

One doesn't have to perfect in one's blog. Nobody's perfect. We all mess up. We aspire for greatness and come out as ordinary. We all hurt others in misguided ways, sometimes. Sometimes we lie to our loved ones, or at least fail to the tell the truth. We have pasts that are spotty. Sometimes we're bad-tempered, or do indeed have an outrageous opinion or experience we'd like to share, and it's not a popular one.

But the journal, or the blog if we keep one, is where we come to settle the scores and lay down the truth.

In the blog, one only has to be oneself. That's why readers keep coming back.

42 comments:

  1. I only can agree to every point you made.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Nick,

    You could give me cash money and a pizza too, but I'll settle for total agreement.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I couldn't agree more. I kind of wish you had been more specific about the blogs you dissed, because I felt the same way about a few of them as well, and wonder if it was the same blogs.

    I like your stuff. I'll admit to some curiosities about your situation, but in general, your writing is honest and genuine and draws me in. I especially love to hear about your youthful escapades of discovery.

    I also identify with what you said about blogging in general. While an occasional comment on my blog sends me over the moon, I'm really doing it for myself. It helps me sort through my experiences, as well as making me feel so much less isolated.

    And by the way, I've e-mailed you before, and you've always been very kind, and helpful. Thanks to you and the handful of other guys I read regularly.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Jack the Explorer (it sounds like a party game),

    There's no need to get TOO specific, since most of the blogs mentioned are either gone or dead. The 'stamp-collecting' one at which I took a potshot is still around, though, and I don't want to badmouth it in an identifiable way. It's basically good-intentioned; it just is a little too strenuously filtered to keep me reading.

    As for me, I'm honest about the stuff I write about. I draw a line at sharing certain things, sure. I've got a real life to live, here.

    ReplyDelete
  5. The more I read, the more I like your writing. You mention honesty quite often. It's a good point: Be true to yourself, be honest about your intentions. It's somehow one of the hardest and at the same time easiest things to do.

    (I am guilty of point 1! I thought I could do it–write about myself directly, I mean, but I think I'm a bit of a coward. It's safer to marvel at other people's courage. From a safe distance :)

    To write about yourself the way you do, that's very brave.

    Oh, and you give sound advise!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Countess,

    You write a lovely blog. You've nothing to apologize or feel guilty for.

    We all violate the rules sometimes. But you know, we keep plodding on.

    ReplyDelete
  7. How true breeder, I go at least once a week and clean up blogs that haven't made a single entry in six months.

    I stopped caring about comments long ago...I no longer seek that type of validation...I only do it because I enjoy it and it keeps my mind occupied...some people do puzzles, others watch TV...I blog and I thought two and a half years ago that I would soon run out of things to say or have fresh gay erotic stories...I seem to never dry up and my political, anti-religious rants just keep surfacing out of nowhere.
    keep blogging 'till you drop!

    saludos,
    raulito
    http://fromtop2bttm.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  8. I agree so much with what you've posted here. In the short amount of time that I've been reading sex blogs (and even shorter time I've been writing one) I've quickly learned what makes readers happy and what doesn't. Probably because I started out as a reader before thinking, "Hey, I've got something to bring to the table here." It helps to be honest like you and I and all of the good bloggers out there. I think having a good string of modesty works too. I for one would never bad mouth a comment, I'm too honored that someone even bothered to write. And the few times that a rude comment has slipped by the spam catcher and my own eyes, my readers have shot the comment down quick. Why? Because being good to your readers creates loyalty.

    Sadly I've been breaking from blogging, but I really hope to get back into it soon. I love doing it, but real life has just bumped me aside from not just blog writing, but all writing in general. It is tough, but you're right, taking a break works. It has taken some pressure out of my life.

    Good post, my friend. Love it as I love you.

    -Ace

    ReplyDelete
  9. Rob,
    No one has named blogs here but "Undatural Devotions" fills the definition. I loved that blog. His book and film reviews were so interesting that I was constantly getting the books from the library or the films from Netflix.
    But I never told him so. I'm not a big commenter. I've commented here possibly 3 times. A record for me! I'm sorry I didn't give UD more feedback. He not only stopped but packed up and closed. And I so wanted to get the title of a book he had reviewed! Thanks Rob, good post on a continuing trend. Martin

    ReplyDelete
  10. interesting post here, and great read. I blog for personal pleasure and slowly will find my feet and manage the blog perhaps little more professionally in time, so vested interest in your experience and observations.

    I can't say I totally agree with all your views, So guess Nick will be eating that free Pizza without me! (refers to first comment!), but I do keep coming back for more, so you must be hitting my curiosity button more often than not!

    Thanks xx

    ReplyDelete
  11. I follow some bloggers on his site but my page is just posting photos. Why, becuase I am on mulitply.com and blog there about all sorts of things and have been since Yahoo 360 went away. A number of contacts moved to multiply so I followed. But they do not like naughty photos and will delete people so photos I do post there are g-rated. So many people comment about how they wanted to see/post other type photos that when I found that blogger was ok with that I started to post photos only here for my contacts over there (and now here) to see.

    But for the everyday blogs of my boring life, topics in the news, and stuff in general, it is all done at the other site.

    I do agree with what you said, some people are in for the numbers (of contacts/friends/followers) and some just want people to comment and/or agree with everything they say.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Good points all. And your four tips taken together (a little bit here and a little more there) manage to address my Number One pet peeve about a blog: When it becomes overly self-conscious. When the blog becomes about the trials and tribulations of blogging, and not stamp-collecting or sex or whatever it set out to be. Readers will indulge (and forgive) the occasional rant, when a well-liked blogger reacts to a particularly outrageous (or hurtful) comment; often they'll cheer him on or spring to his defense with a more passionate response than the blogger will allow himself. But when every day it's one whine or kvetch after another, then the blog has lost its point-of-view and its interest. (It's lost my interest anyway.)

    The favorite blogger you cited threw his hissy fit more and more often (as you know) and had quit his blog on several occasions. When I read his "No—this is really really really it this time!" final post, I was kind of glad. As much as I had enjoyed his blog for a very long time, it had been clear for quite some time that he was no longer enjoying it. Your advice is sound: "If you're a blogger who's not enjoying it any longer, take a break." Or: "Stop altogether."

    (I admit that I read that certain mister's final benediction with cry-wolf skepticism. Today I see that he's still on your blogroll with a today's date entry. A quick click reveals that—apparently—he never left. Even if he's not done, I think I am.)

    Thank you—not just for enumerating your Four Points Blogma but for practicing what you preach. You do an exemplary job of maintaining balance. I think that comes across in your writing because it's an extension of the balance you maintain in your life.

    It always amuses me that you see A Breeder's Journal as "just" a sexblog. It has always been so much more. Seven-thousand comments and almost 700 followers later, it's still working. Hard.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Very good post and very good advice, Rob. Not simply for me the blogger but me the writer. I keep waking up to a phrase playing about in my brainpan: "My writing will set me free." Maybe a little too dramatic or overly-romantic but I think in some ways it is true.

    Sometimes we all need a little kick in the pants of our motivation. Love ya.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Rob man,
    I love that post and how you elaborate your thinking of how a blog should be made and interesting. That is why your blog is the best, for me it is and that is why i always come back to read it. You are such an amazing writer and a very kind man so people are drawn to you and you deserve every comments that we write for you. I will always be there to support you my sexy friend and you know that. For me, you are the best of the best.

    Yves

    ReplyDelete
  15. That wasn't his first hissy fit. He does that regularly enough that I wonder if he's off his meds. When he's writing, I find his blog very titillating, but I do get tired of the drama.

    ReplyDelete
  16. When something in life stops being fun then it's time to move on and find some fun elsewhere. I've done this many times and left pissed off people in my wake when I just found it a chore to keep persevering with something that gives me no joy!

    ReplyDelete
  17. Amen! I look at my own blog and often ask myself why I bother to add to it from time to time. There is no real constant theme, aside from the fact that I think about sex a lot. I don't think it could be categorized as a gay blog or a cheating blog or a political blog or any of those things. What it provides me is an outlet to write things that I are on my mind but wouldn't be willing to express on a blog intended for reading by my neighbors or my kids or my parents. If a hand full of other people get anything from it at all, all the better.

    You give great advice.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Raulito,

    When I dry up, it's because I'm not living my life the way it's supposed to be lived. It happens sometimes—we get busy and overburdened—but that's a sure sign to me that I need to make some changes.

    I like comments. I encourage comments. But I know that out of the thousands of readers I'm getting a day, only a handful stop to comment, and that's okay. As much as I like the feedback, it's not the reason I write and share.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Ace,

    I know you have readers who miss you. Including me.

    You're correct that it's pretty much an honor when someone comments. They're not all one-hundred-percent gems, though. I've encountered some comments that add nothing to the conversation or that I know will irk other readers through some kind of heedlessness or another. They're a small, small percentage of the total, though.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Martin,

    Thanks. I didn't know that blog, but now I wish I did. Do you subscribe to 'Salmagundi'? My friend Writer there always has an interesting mix of books, media, and sexy posts.

    I know that a lot of my readers don't comment, and don't comment daily. That's fine. Ever since my great comment burnout of a few months back, I find it difficult to comment on other blogs as well, sometimes. But I keep reading, which is the real compliment.

    ReplyDelete
  21. MaleDude,

    After I wrote this I realized I should've made a #5, which would've been, Ignore everything I've said above. Because you know what? Ultimately it's up to a blogger to decide what his blog's going to be. And until the day comes I'm paying for his internet access, computer, and time, he can pretty much tell me to fuck off and mind my own business.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Cyberi4a,

    Photo blogs are an entirely different animal. They're wildly popular, too—much more so than the text blogs. There's room in the world for all kinds of expressions!

    ReplyDelete
  23. Throb,

    Oh, I see what you're saying. I post about my hardships too often. Sniffle.

    I don't see anything wrong with being just a sex blog, really—because I do write a blog, and I keep it focused on the sexual side of my life. However, that's not to imply that I think sex is something trivial or something that should be compartmentalized. There's nothing 'just sex' about sex. It's a vital and important part of our lives, and I don't think many people write about it well. We should honor those that make themselves vulnerable and do it anyway.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Writer,

    But your blog is always good. You mix it up and keep it coming.

    ReplyDelete
  25. Yves,

    Having people like you visit makes blogging worthwhile. Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  26. Fold,

    I can't say for sure whether we're talking about the same person—I think a couple of readers have assumed I meant one blog when I was indeed talking about others.

    Everyone has a hissy fit now and again. It just happens. Repeat offenders though, make me want to slip quietly out the door and not return.

    ReplyDelete
  27. JohnDownunder,

    Of course, important things—a relationship, a family—are worth persevering for. It's not all fun and candy there, all the time. But yeah, if it's something you can get away with not doing, and you're not enjoying it? By all means, move on!

    ReplyDelete
  28. JFBreak,

    It's your blog. You do with it what you want to, my friend.

    I've seen cheating blogs and political blogs and load-collecting blogs and they're all good things, but the blogs that really keep my interest are those about a person rather than an abstract. I'll visit those for as long the writer keeps writing.

    ReplyDelete
  29. So on the way home from Canada (having had more than enough foreskin and hot Canuck ass) I thought I would finally take the plunge and start my own blog of my 'rather active' sex life...but now I really don't know. It seems like everytime I'm ready to start, I read something like this that makes me shy away--seeing myself falling into any number of those traps. Maybe forewarned...

    ReplyDelete
  30. FelchingPisser,

    I think you'd have a lot of fans for any blog you wrote; I know your fans here would be happy to add your blog to their reading—and I'd be happy to tell them when you opened a blog.

    I don't know that anything I've said here should scare you off. When you write, you write about the stuff you actually do. You write it in a way that's readable and hot. You've always thanked your commenters here. So what if you had some periods during the year when the entries came a little less frequently? Just tell people you'll be busy for a month or two, and they'll be excited when you come back.

    If I had a vote, I'd tell you to start blogging. I'd be happy to be your first subscriber.

    ReplyDelete
  31. Felching Pisser,

    I'd love to throw my own vote in here for you starting a blog too. No pressure or anything, but you are incredibly hot and your stories that Rob has posted have been great and written really well. I would happily read and share your blog with my small group of readers. And no worries about leaving people hanging. I've been away and my readers have been nothing but supportive.

    -Ace

    ReplyDelete
  32. Which blog this blog was important lets know and will help :)

    ReplyDelete
  33. Hey Rob!

    Thanks for the tips! I love having sex and enjoy writing and combining the two with my blog. I didn't realize how much I missed writing until I started the blog about my sex life. It also has kept me looking for more sexual opportunities to write about.

    I celebrated my 1 year anniversary as a blog writer this past Sunday.

    Still hoping that we can meet up and fuck!

    ReplyDelete
  34. Starting a blog is an idea that always excites a budding or would-be writer. We all have that basic urge to leave our thoughts inscribed somewhere for posterity, an instinct akin to the one that also drives the sexual libido - at least in part, - the primordial necessity to procreate.

    Having an audience of any kind is of paramount importance as a writer with new, old, or one who is craving the experience -- even if the audience is only one member - the blogger himself. Several have mentioned that they write first and foremost of themselves. I think keeping up a blog may very well depend on getting some kind of audience, or even just the possibility that people actually can find and read it. For the dozen or so blogs, in my case [ if you can actually call them that], I use Blogger but not solely. I actually think of those blogspots as either my memory banks (places to store stuff I want to retrieve later, or 'semen deposits' - places where I store photos, stories and stuff that excited men when I saw it.
    Consequently, not ever so-called blog post is even text or image intended for a real audience. However, some people are definitely only likely to continue writing if they can get some type of feedback about their efforts and the content (albeit self-focused stories).

    ReplyDelete
  35. Therefore , I recommend that first time bloggers start out by making blog-type posts inside another social networking site (Not Facebook!). Even Xtube has a blog function, also Tribe.net is a good place to get a few people to notice and comment on your blogs -- whether they be literary narratives, simple diaries, opinionated essays, or just sharing a sexual adventure or new realization about life, or something interesting or attractive you've found in the real world or the virtual one, and even the odd rant or rage sometime. JustUsboys.com is also a widely known porn site but allows members to interact in forums and create a blog.

    Tribe.net was actually the original Facebook -- at least conceptually, and it still has a great following of alternative eggheads and potheads, along with some other truly great people, some of whom also write. It is mainly composed of many sexually liberated people who freely mix explicit sexual content along with their contemporary sentiments and sensibilities in our chaotic world(s)... Smile. I sometimes have the notion that not everyone on Tribe is from the planet Earth, me included (sly grin).
    Perhaps others can name some other (similar or not) places where newbie bloggers can find a niche and a sympathetic audience (sometimes by default).

    I've said it often to my (imaginary) readers, and privately to dozens of non-blogging members of those sites who appear to be potential bloggers above:
    The best way to write is find a topic that you care about and then respond. From that response may come the crystal of a idea that can easily turn into a valuable blog post. At least in your own mind, it will have value and be worth repeating, i.e, posting elsewhere. Sometimes, it a matter of self-confidence, and also a realization that real writers are never born, that just develop themselves into that self-definition, but are shaped by the nature of their work and the perceived feedback (enjoyment, useful, sympathy, empathy, and exhilaration (sexual and/or emotional) of their audience).

    This comment (response to others' ideas) will now become the seed (or the whole peach) of a posting on one of my personal narrative blogs. I separate my blogs into different functions to serve my own dichotomies of thought and interests: sexual, social, political, emotional and spiritual. It's not necessary to do so, but I find that I tend to follow bloggers that stick to a theme instead of constantly changing from one mundane topic to another as if the events of life direct their consciousness, instead of the other way around.

    No, I'm not a good blogger.. but I'm not a bad one either. I can be faulted in may ways, but not for -- not trying to become a better writer, and a person who encourages other to find and share their own voice.

    Kelly (sunbuns / hardtwoholed / seefallus)

    ReplyDelete
  36. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  37. I think you're referring to MRGHJunkie who trashed you tonight in his swan-song entry on his blog. He seems freaky to me. So self-absorbed. You seem real.

    ReplyDelete
  38. MrGloryholeJunie,

    You're 100% right that I'm deleting your comments tonight. I would've thoughtfully addressed your first remark, because it had interesting notions in it. The subsequent comments in which you attacked me and my family, however, stepped way over the line.

    Of all the people in the world who can get on a moral high horse and criticize someone else's sex life . . . well, you're not the one. Neither am I, for that matter, but I didn't go there. You did.

    I'm not deleting your comments because I'm afraid of 'the truth', as you imply. I'm deleting them because you're being fucking rude. Obviously you seemed to feel that some of the things I was saying in here applied to you, and it set you off. Your indignation doesn't give you the right to insult me in my own blog.

    Feel free to write a rant on your blog, though. I'm not too worried, since it'll be gone in another two weeks when you take down the blog for the fourteenth time.

    ReplyDelete
  39. 12:55 Anonymous,

    The thing is, I know I'm real—and I do have a growing number of readers who've met me in person and can attest to that fact—and I'm pretty sure that MrGHJ is real too. It's a shame that the way his logic seems to work is, "I am feeling attacked, so therefore the person I perceive as attacking me is a total fraud, because then his conclusions must be totally fraudulent as well!." It's bad reasoning, and to agree with you, pretty narcissistic.

    It's a faulty premise to begin with, as I wasn't on the warpath against him. This entry wasn't all about him. I left everything anonymous, and discouraged other commenters from assuming of whom I spoke. My comments were aimed, as I stated, at several blogs that have either gone out of business or that I no longer read. Heck, some of the things I said applied to my own blog, and I've admitted to that.

    That the entry struck a nerve with him is pretty plain.. It's a shame he's chosen to overreact with wild accusations and drama.

    ReplyDelete
  40. Kelly,

    I really like your points.

    Starting a blog is like starting any new creative project. It's an exciting prospect when it's just a concept. The minute that paint goes to brush, or words to paper, though, the concept becomes something hobbled by our own limitations, and tainted, and less like inspiration and more like work. Blogs are tough.

    And I totally agree with you that not everyone maintains a blog for the same reasons. I might have a lot of people following me in this blog, but I've been keeping my own memory bank in various notebooks and computer files for thirty years now. That's why I like writing about my life. Sharing it with others is just a (sometimes) fun bonus.

    In one of the other comments here I noted that there should've been a fifth suggestion that said Ignore everything I've said above. Because your blogs are your own, and you get to decide what purpose they serve and how often you'll update and what you'll put in it. If you're using them for those intended purposes and you're happy with them, then no one can ever call you a bad blogger.

    ReplyDelete
  41. I had thought I'd keep this to myself and go about my business. But maybe after spending a couple of hours reading through you past posts, Formspring, etc., I found myself compelled to quickly thank you for this post before too much time passed. Don't have much else to say except that I found it inspiring. So, thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  42. Ameinias,

    Thanks for the kind words. It's always a really nice thing when someone takes the time to speak up.

    ReplyDelete