Or, alternately titled, Why bloggers who have been around for a long time, don’t seem to comment or visit your blog.
So you start a blog. Maybe you found an awesome blog written by a hugely popular blogger and loved it, or maybe you’ve heard about them and want to try it out for yourself. No matter the reason, you’ve started a blog. Yay!
And so, once you’ve gotten over your ohmygod my blog is only brand new, no one is going to like me nerves, then you start commenting. And you comment on the big bloggers and you comment on their entire blogroll and you comment and comment and….
…nothing. Occasionally a click through if you’ve been commenting on high traffic blogs and said something interesting, but no one comments back.
You feel a little discouraged, but never mind! I’ve read the big blogger’s archives and there are no comments for like, months of posts! It will be fine.
So you write some more and it’s pretty good. You comment some more and someone comments back. You click to their blog because I’m not all snooty like the big bloggers are and you read and she’s lovely and you comment. You notice that she’s been blogging for around the same amount of time you have and you add her to your reader. She’s just as grateful for a comment and does the same to you.
You have connected. You’re doing this blogging thing and you’re making friends.
You do this with another twenty women or so, women whom you email with, you comment backwards and forwards and you’re good friends. You join twitter and you’re not terrified of being alone because there are your girls. Your posse.
Time stretches on and you add more bloggers to your reader, bigger blogs, controversial blogs, I mean, you can’t not be reading what everyone else is reading, right?
And suddenly, you turn around and you’re getting 20 comments a post and you’re getting, while not a huge amount, okay traffic.
Then, one of your posse stops blogging. Maybe something happens in her real life, maybe she gets bored. She stops.
Someone else starts updating only once a month.
You fall out with someone, or decide that they’ve gotten boring. You unsubscribe.
You go through your reader, looking for blogs that are now dead (and wow, you won’t realise how many there are until you start) and you unsubscribe. You stop reading blogs that you’ve been subscribed to for a long time, because meh. They’re still awesome blogs, just, I don’t need to keep up with the controversy, or follow a blog because everyone else does anymore.
You wittle down who you’re subscribed to and one day, you wake up and your reader only has 10 updated items and you’ve got hardly any comments and wonder where everyone went.
****
You see, when you start blogging, you connect with women who started around the time you did. Your traffic grows together and you become friends and follow each other and read and laugh and comment.
And then, as your blog gets older and new bloggers shoot out of the woodwork, you find new people commenting and reading, but somehow, time flies and you don’t get a chance to click over to their blog, or if you do, you forget to comment or subscribe.
You’ve been doing this blogging thing for so long that while every new commenter is a fuzzy feeling in your stomach, it’s not a burning need to subscribe back to them.
Basically, you’ve become stuck in a rut. Reading the same blogs for 2 years and forgetting to add new ones to your reader.
Sure, you’ll add new blogs occasionally, but the writing has to be extraordinary. Like, SixYearMed, or Sweet|Salty extraordinary.
Or you have to connect instantly and want to get to know them better.
And really, you just forget. You love your commenters and you enjoy their blogs, but you turn around and realise that 6 weeks have passed and you’ve forgotten to check their blog back, or subscribe to them.
That kind of thing makes you feel like shit.
It’s easy to continue to read only the blogs you’ve been following for a long time, because you don’t need to learn their backstory. You don’t need to spend time hunting through archives to work out how old their children are, or why they started blogging, or who the hell Danny is.
But, it also means that large bloggers, they’re stagnating a little bit. They forget to link when they find a brilliant new blog, like they did in the early days. They don’t participate in awards or memes, because they know that those posts don’t get any traffic or comments.
And slowly, they notice their own comments dwindling, because that tight knit group of women who all started at the same time, or who connected from the get-go, they start to move away from networking and the community of blogging.
I mean, if I *know* Marylin is reading every single one of my posts, and I’m reading every single one of hers, are we still obligated to comment all the time?
***
I’ve done every single one of these things. Most of my bloggy friends, the ones whose posts I don’t skip if I’m busy, they’re women I either connected with instantly, or who started around the same time I did and we’ve become friends.
Bloggers stagnate and without a huge effort to find new blogs to add to my reader, I forget to. Especially as I’m mostly incredibly time poor.
However, I’m making an effort, to start adding new blogs to my reader. To learn their backstory and make new bloggy friends and to remind myself, if they don’t click back and visit me here, that I know exactly why they haven’t.
And now, I’m reminding everyone who might feel like they’re stagnating to do the same thing.
Make a new friend this week.
Comment on their blog.
Subscribe.
Link.
And if you could have one person reading your blog on a regular basis, who would you choose?
I’d probably pick The Bloggess for Sleepless Nights and Shannon for Veronica Foale.
You?
I’m guilty of quite a few of those points…
Interestingly, when I changed my blog over to a dot com address I lost my blogroll!! I still haven’t re-done it. Maybe it’s time to weed through and start a fresh new list 😉
Thanks for this post – a reminder to nurture the old & new connections we makle here in blogland.
x
I have only been blogging for six months so I haven’t gone through the cycles you have, but I have my circle of hardcore bloggy friends. I read their blogs and they read mine, and we almost always comment. I add A LOT of new blogs, some out of interest and some out of obligation, but don’t necessarily read them on a regular basis. Just don’t have the time. But I make an effort to occasionally read and comment on the blogs I find interesting, even if they aren’t part of my tight circle.
I have been blogging for going on two years, but I don’t post a lot, mostly because I don’t have anything to say. So although I have been blogging for a while I have yet to make very many connection, I mostly just have the blogs I read and comment on every now and then. My excuse writer block, and although it is true I have been in a year long funk, I see what you mean. I have been commenting less for lack of things to say and lack of time. Life takes away time for writing weather it be the blog or the book. Time to get back to writing and time to find more blogs to read.
When I started blogging I had visions of having a wildly successful blog and having lots of readers and commenters. Tis yet to happen, actually I doubt very much whether it ever will, but I don’t care as much any more. I’m a bit slack with commenting on other blogs even though I read them but not every blog post requires a comment. I’m also very bad at linking to other bloggers – tis something I think about but it requires more effort than I feel I have most times.
Anyhoo, I’m commenting here because I felt like it. As for someone to read my blog? Hmmm, I’ve got my blog crushes, Dooce, Loobylu, Pioneeer Woman and if they want to pop on over then great!
I have been blogging for a couple of years but on and off so have never really had the connections you mentioned. Thats one of the reasons I found you via Aussie Mummy Blogs as most of my readers were from the US!
I try and answer comments, not that I get many – I do try and make an effort leaving some too.
I would have to say you are one of my new favourites 🙂
I’ve recently added a couple of extra people to my reading list. Last year I clicked links like crazy adding people, then a few months later realised I hadn’t read more than one or two postings before forgetting them altogether, so I deleted them again. I’ve kept my favourite people, those who hold my interest and make me laugh.
I’ve been blogging for almost three years & it’s only just in the last six months or so that I’ve actually received any comments or anything. Maybe I wasn’t interesting before?!
I find it hard to follow along with so many, because like you I am time poor & sitting for an hour to read through all of the blogs I enjoy is something I can’t do on a daily basis. As a result I have my 10 or so I read daily & then every few days go through everyone I follow.
GREAT post Veronica. I always love reading your blog, and know that you answer when it’s warranted, and as you were one of the first blogs I ever followed, I kind of assumed you were the benchmark for how all bloggers operated. HA! you hear that? you are a standard now.
Anyhoo, I add blogs fairly regularly. But I delete them if I find I’m not enjoying them. (Life’s too short to eat brown bananas, right?)
I also click on links that other bloggers have taken the time to list — and have found some of my favourite, MUST-READs that way. If I like them, I ‘follow’ ; if I REALLY like them, I add them to my blogroll.
Frequently, I don’t comment on some blogs because I feel too dull, or unqualified in some way — or because everyone else seems to know each other so well (kind of like being the only stranger at a Tupperware party)
I love finding new blogs, and I love when the owner responds to a comment I’ve left — so I must remember to welcome new readers to my own blog! Since I don’t have many that shouldn’t be hard.
I am a terrible terrible commenter. I always have been crap at commenting.
It is mainly because when I read a thoughtful, well written, humourous, heartbreaking etc blog I get commenters block and I just know that my comment will never do the post I have just read justice.
Often I will think about a post I have read somewhere for days and I will always mean to go back and leave a really kick-arse comment but then new posts appear and time just slips away from me.
OMG! Case in point. I am only reading this now. Hehe.
But you know I love you, right? You were like my very first commenter so I am forever yours baby, whether you like it or not. Mwahs.
Never ever stop writing brilliant Veronica!
I love this post and I am so guilty of all of this now that I have been blogging for over three years. I sit down at the computer and I immediately go for the people I have a connection with and I think I will look for new blogs, connect with new people but with so little time, I don’t.
I’m going to try harder this week.
Who would I love to read my blog?
I guess the people I love do already read but I have to admit to getting the biggest thrill when the Pioneer Woman chose my photo in I heart faces for second place last year. Oh, it was a joyous day. So if she were reading, I think I’d be quietly squeeing on the inside.
OMG – This is an AMAZING post and so timely for me. I am approaching my one year blogoversary and about 80% of the women I started out with? Not updaitng, took a bloggy break or quit. I recently found myself in need of building a “new” tribe.
Just stumbled this post – thank you for putting my every thought together and making this clear to me – since my blog has grown, I do need to make more of an effort to mak this happen.
Great post! I am still in the newish stage where I read alot but don’t comment very much, thinking people really don’t want to hear from me!
So so true! I always read your blog, and Tiffs, Barbara’s, Nikki, Brenda and Kristin, but I don’t *always* comment.
And besides… we’ve always got skype, right?
I have a sort of ebb and flow thing going on with blogging. I will go a few weeks of just reading the blogs in my reader, then I will have a couple weeks of finding new people to connect with, I add them to my reader, and try to comment when I can, but then the flow goes and I go back to just reading.
Everything in life comes in swings and roundabouts.
Sometimes we have the energy, the time to commit to the blogging community, and sometimes we don’t.
Sometimes we spend all our time doing housework, but sometimes we just let it pile up. Sometimes we spend every waking moment thinking up new things to do with our little ones, and other times we need some time-out for ourselves, so maybe the kidlets might watch a lil too much tv for a couple days.
It’s just the way we, as humans, work.
That’s my 2p’s worth anyway! 🙂
(also, thankies for the link love sweety! You made my day! By far my bestest bloggy friend, I have always felt a kinship to you, even though we are so far away, so much love to you! xx)
Its like I get “bloggers fatigue” or something and I just trawl through my reader as a chore more than a pleasure. I have blogged about it recently when I said I was taking a hiatus from everyone else’s blogs to make more time for mine, strangely that hasn’t happened! Oh well, I gues the fact that I am spending more time hanging out with my girls and playing is a good thing. I will make the time to blog, I promise and I will also make the time to find some new, wonderful bloggers to read and comment on!
I find the balance really hard. I’m an introvert, it’s much, much easier to put together my own posts than read and comment on other people’s. And when I see there are already 15 comments, it feels like I’ve walked in when the conversation’s over. I started blogging on my own and have only just got myself a reader, I’m coming up to my first anniversary but feel like I’m still trying to work out how to get meet other people. But it’s growing slowly. I definitely see the effect when I put the effort in, so I just have to keep pushing myself. I keep trying different things. I don’t fit with a lot of the memes and groups out there, I don’t know if it’s just because my blog is such a specific niche or if I just haven’t found it yet.
I comment so you know I’m still here. There are only 6 blogs I regularly read and comment on now, and I try to read them at least once a week.
This includes Marilyn 🙂
I’m not too fussed with mine because I write for me and I know sometimes I don’t update for a long time, then go to updating daily, then to monthly. It all changes and some people won’t follow.
I am actually in this rut at the moment.
I have a full reader of blogs but end up reading them in my reader and not commenting or just marking as unread.
Every now and then I get a burst of energy and add a whole lot of new blogs but by the next morning I am sighing at the volume in my reader!
Someone asked me why I still blog since it is now more common than Justin Beiber haircuts. I responded that it’s nice to see different perspectives from all over the world — by just opening my reader.
Aside from my (up to) four regular commenters, I’ve been getting fewer and fewer comments on my posts, and it kind of makes me feel like I’m writing less interesting things, or that I’m failing in some way. I know I don’t comment nearly as much as I used to, and I will leave a comment if I have advice or questions. But if people are posting the same stuff with different words it feels kind of lacklustre to comment with “I’m sorry you’re having a hard go of it, keep your chin up.”
I read all of your posts, all the time. I’m sorry I’ve been a bad commenter.
See, I’m still new to the ‘blogging community’ concept. I started blogging when I was about 14, so back in 2002, on livejournal and xanga and teenopendiary and all those types of places, starting a new blog or LJ or diary every time I had a depressive or manic episode that found me sweeping out the old to frantically build new. Then I started a blog on one of the seperate blog sites when I was about 16, before there were ‘bloggers’ and when it was just blogs (if that makes sense). After six months, I got tired of listening to myself whine, I got tired of talking about breaking up with boyfriends, I got tired of writing ‘Missed deadline for college, will probably fail course. Again. Going to go get drunk to soothe pain of being a big fat failure.’ and I stopped and I turn around and it’s 5 years later and I start reading blogs again but suddenly it’s this whole network and community thing and everyone knows each other, and for a time I’m happy to just read, but then I want to comment, and I don’t want to comment anonymously, because if I always comment anonymously, then you won’t know that Anonymous Commenter on post X asking about how your war with Dominoes is going is the same person that two months ago commiserated with you about lack of clarity when it comes to lbelling for allergies. So I got a blog. And I thought I had an angle. Because blogs need angles. But then, through the blogs I was reading I started discovering OTHER blogs. Through you I discovered Jenny and BendyGirl and through Bendy Girl I discovered SewTired and through Jenny I discovered a whole fucking load of crazy people but it was ok because they were my kind of crazy. A comforting kind of crazy.
But there’s still that sense sometimes of ‘Jesus, does anyone actually care what I have to say? I’m commenting, but really, who cares what I think? I’m blogging but who wants to read it?’ Because lets face it, there are 60million gazillion blogs on the internet, do I even have anything new to say? Do I have a new way of saying it? Does anyone care? And then I get all angsty and stop updating my blog because it’s scary to write about your life in an open way, lay it all out there, and think people’s response may be ‘Meh, Amanaa over at MyRandomBlog said the same thing in a better way.’
This has been a long way of saying ‘blogging scares me these days’. I feel like a world war one veteran trying to figure out an iPhone.
ALSO. Because I forgot. I honestly don’t know who I would want to read my blog. Maybe the woman who writes over at sewtired.wordpress.com if I get diagnosed with CFS, if I get diagnosed with hypermobility then probably you or BG, and regardless of diagnoses, anyone who is struggling with deep post-natal-depression, whether they comment or not, just so they know they are NOT alone, and that someone at least is willing to talk about what PND feels like. I got so so so tired of wishy washy, vague, scared descriptions of PND, no one being brave enough to admit to feelings that go against everything our whole upbringing tells us is natural, and moreover, talk about how hard it is to cope with having to be a mother while having PND, because your life CAN’T just stop, you still have to care for this tiny helpless person even if you are revolted by the idea. So, yeah. That.
Who do I want to read my blog? Anyone who needs to read it.
I know this well… I go through phases with the different types of blogs that I read, and I’m trying hard to get into the personal blogs again… I’ve had a love affair with photo blogs for too long now
Great post, Veronica. I feel exactly the same – but I love it that you put it all in words. I, in stark contrast, just walk around feeling vaguely crap about the number of blogs I haven’t read for agggeeesssss.
I don’t worry about having no comments and if I don’t blog for ages its just because I haven’t felt like it. I don’t feel any moral obligation whatsoever to keep the world of blogging on its merry go round. With so many people in the world to blog I doubt whether I write, read, comment or not makes one jot of difference!.If someone wants to read my blog they can, if they don’t I don’t much care either. I do read new blogs, in different genres out of my comfort zone and on occassion put them in my reader along with my favourites. I have been thinking of not reading any blogs at all for a trial period to see if anything exciting happens but have to say would have to peek at benefitscroungingscum.blogspot.com and thebiopopsyreport. and frogpondsrock – Perhaps its a phase I don’t know, for a while I participated in on line forums but I rarely do that anymore. I value the few friendships I made whilst doing that. My guess is that in a few years time I will still be reading the same blogs I do now regularly, dipping my toe in the water of others sometimes as I do now. I’m not a fan of overly self conscious writing blogs or yummy mummy blogging in the style of sex in the city. I like my blogs real with real people in real life as honest as possible. Sometimes when I start to comment I go on too long and erase before I hit publish. Which is one reason I like my favourites because they put up with me if I go on. If there are loads and loads of comments on a blog I am new too I spend ages dithering about commenting and then mean to comment then time passes and I often don’t. Perhaps familiarity builds contempt if one blogs too much on the same blogs I don’t know. When I did start adding new blogs I found myself spending far too much time on line so keeping my reader manageable is another reason not to branch out so far. But as in my real life I have a few good friends I am like this in the blogging world going for quality not quantity. As for commenting depends on my mood as to whether I do or don’t really.
Fantastic post. Don’t remember how I arrived here, but now I subscribe.
I feel the same way about many of your points. The thing that gets to me is the people who consider themselves A-listers, yet sometimes only get 20 or so comments, and I’ve been faithful commenting every day for like ONE YEAR NOW and still not a single blog visit, not a single comment back on their own blog and not an email. Just throw me a bone once every 6 months, OK?
Then there are the BIG people, the really BIG ones who are famous and all and send me emails to thank me for being faithful. It takes them all of 2 seconds to click on over and say, “thanks for always commenting” and it makes my day, and it keeps me loyal, and they do it.
I have since dumped 3 queen bees, just b/c others read them, doesn’t mean I still have to.
Loved this post, thank you.
I’d just like to say – thanks for taking the time to visit my blog, even though I’ve only been doing it for 6 months. 🙂
I, on the other hand, have never taken the time to visit yours… until now. I’ll be back (a promise, not a scary stalker threat!)
I only leave comments for blogs that have really caught my interest or eye. Therefore, I comment now, firstly because you write so well, and secondly because what you write about is ‘food for thought’. I try and blog once a week or if something eventful has happened, if not then I don’t try to force a topic.
Thanks for your thoughts about the life cycle of blogging, like many others I could relate to it.
Well said. There are a core of maybe 7 or 8 blogs that I always read and I used to always comment but I just don’t have the time to now. I comment on them as much as I can. Then there are maybe 60 odd blogs that I try and keep up with because I enjoy them but rarely comment on. It’s hard to know what to prioritise on
Wow, this post came at the perfect time for me. I have been blogging for 4 years but my current blog is only a couple months old (my old blog crashed and burned).
I’m guilty of not commenting enough and it is something that I need to make more of an effort to do.
Really interesting, thanks for the insight. Whilst I have blogged for a while I only opened my blog to the public about 6 month ago and also took a big break for Lent so I am fairly new and just getting into my stride. You are right about making friends with those who started at the same time as you. Mich x
sometimes I just think I have nothing good to say. sigh. i’m not sure who I’d like to be reading my blog. maybe amalah?
Yeah I get upset when people dont comment on my blog lol A bit sad really T_T Pathetic sad that it lol
I find it hard to find blogs that keep my interest though, so I only add the ones Im committed to reading and commenting on. I feel though, that to most of my whole 10 subscribers Im just a number on their list.
I dont really *care* as such as to whom reads and comments on my blog, it would just be nice to havepeople commenting and reading haha.
I actually wrote a nice big comment yesterday and my computer crashed as I hit send and the comment now appears lost!
I’m very new to blogging, but I have already been thinking about some of the points you have made here. Although I am too new to have experienced many of the aspects you bring up, I still found this post a great read. And something to keep in mind as I learn and progress!
As I am also a new subscriber to your blog, I would like to say my favourite part about your posts so far, for me is your directness. Your honesty is refreshing and appreciated. I hope you keep on being able to say what everyone else is thinking!
Ahh, don’t worry too much! Do what you enjoy and only do it if you enjoy it. Reciprocate as much as you can and beyond that, don’t get too in a bunch is what I think!
It’s all about ‘time’ and ‘times’. The amount of time available and the number of times you find yourself saying the same things in comments – over and over. So you just read. to conserve time. and to not be repetitious.
And to repeat myself – again – I will say this – Someday I shall win the lottery – and when I do, I’m going to visit you and your Mum – and I’m going to build you an indoor loo.
I’m a terrible reader and commenter. And the funny thing is, it isn’t because I think I’m so fabulous, but because 1) the clock hates me and 2) I am almost paralytic about commenting because I am so crap at it.
The strange thing is, though, that not only do I think you of you as my EDS buddy, but I like you (and your photos, which I think I comment on more than your site). And that’s me being honest, not kissing up 🙂
So, so true. And I’m hoping to come back to life in June…so, maybe we can reconnect. 🙂
Oh man, I so could have written this post. I was up there in comments for awhile, and then I went more under the radar, and it was OK for me. I didn’t need the insane number of comments. But I kept writing, and not really commenting, because it was just something I needed to do for me. And then this years “resolution” was to comment more, and I have, but I get so rutted and like Shannon, really stupid busy, and by the time I sit down at night, I’m like, “the internet…meh.” And I hate that, but there it is. And a lot of times I read, and then, I have nothing to add.
How fascinating… what a great post. And thanks for the mention. Blushy. It’s interesting to think of how blogging motives change. From watching stats and comments to just that purity of having a place to go, a shelf to put important stuff that’s yours. I flail wildly back and forth between the two. Or maybe between four or five.
I do think that friendships change blogging. When a virtual circle becomes one that involves cold beer in a pub, and when the zappy energy actually translates in-person. Then the push for reciprocation eases, and it’s less about volume and more about the people you know, and the conversation, regardless of numbers. And that feels good. Until the next week, when the internet goes radio silent, at least in your corner, and you question everything all over again. 🙂
I’ve actually put quite a lot of thought into this, since I am very new to this world of blogging, and was taken aback (pleasantly so!) by the sheer number of great blogs out there.
I spent about two months kind of ‘finding’ as many as possible by going through blog lists on blogs I liked and then reading comments I thought were good, and following those to the writer’s blog. When I found a fab site, I added it to my private blog roll (so it was saved, but ‘hidden’). I also left comments everywhere, so long as the blog was well-written and interesting… I thought of it as a reaching out of sorts, from my end. It was also kind of an invitation like, ‘Hi! I’m new! But I’m here! Maybe drop by my place some time?’
So. Another two months passed, and I slowly developed ‘favourites’, mostly determined by the quality of the writing, and the humour, and how often the person updated. I also noticed that the same people kept coming back to me and leaving comments on my blog, and so I naturally starting going to these peope’s blogs first, and commenting more times than not. I feel like they support me, so I will support them. Give and take, you know? These blogs also got added to my public blog roll, in the hopes of sending them more traffic; I felt their stuff was worth sharing.
After about four months, I had a private blog roll that went into the hundreds, and a list on my blog about 20 blogs long. I realised that I couldn’t keep it up, and so I developed my ‘Five times’ rules (yes, I have a bloggy rule!). Basically, it works like this: if I comment on someone’s blog five times, and they do not comment on mine after that, I stop commenting, though I may still visit. But my thinking is that if I have left five comments, it means that I am a regular reader, and it would be nice for you to return the favour even just once to my five. Just, give me a sign of life. That’s all!
I also update and change my public blog roll to reflect new blogs I find, and people who become regulars at my place; I now have a small but very loyal group of visitors and commenters – including you, dear Veronica! – and so I make it my priority to drop by their blogs, and leave comments. I try to comment once a week, but it depends on the post topics written (I mean, I’d like my comment to have value) and my life. If the kids are sick and/or work is crazed, then it won’t be so often.
So! To sum up (finally) I think that it’s about give and take, and taking the time to show appreciation. If you choose not to do that – and it IS your choice to leave a comment or not – then I don’t think you can lament the fact that nobody leaves comments chez toi. I guess for me, it’s a form of net-iquette: give back the bloggy love you receive….
Oh, and don’t think that just because someone is a ‘big blogger’ they don’t take the time: Dooce has responded to me personally. So I guess that no matter how big one gets, it is possible to find the time, if you think a response is a good idea.
OK. Done! Over and out 😉
You guys are all brilliant and amazing, you know that? So many good points raised.
One of the things I have been challenging myself to do lately is if I have taken the time to visit a blog (new or old) and read a post, then I take the time to leave a comment. It only takes an extra minute, lets the blogger know I have been there and hopefully overcomes the problem you describe. I know that some people only comment if they feel that they can add something to the conversation and I get that but I really want to let other bloggers know that I have been there and keep the conversation going all around the web.
I’m guilty of most of those points! You’ve inspired me to go through my blogroll though, so long overdue I can’t remember when I last sorted it out. I’m like your mum, I love reading blogs but I often don’t know what comment to make to do them justice so I end up not making any. BG Xx
Hello, Veronica. Interesting post. I think many of us are time poor and you’re right, we simply don’t get to all the blogs or comments on all the posts. I’m possibly a little different, because, I wander by a number of blogs, but added only a few to my blogroll. to be honest, the I’m stil getting my head around the whole RSS and subscription thing and I haven’t had the time to suss it out properly. but I manually go to those that interest me and from there, link to others.
My own blog is for me. If others come by, that’s nice, but it’s my place to give voice to the things that I may otherwise not express and lately, that has included poetry. I need to import my old posts from my previous blog to the new address so tehre’s a history … getting there. But for now, it’s the place where the windmills of my mind stir a gentle breeze (actually, sometimes, it’s more of a gale, but that depends on the mood!).
Weird.
Just this week I had a ‘fuck it’ moment and just blogged. Instead of stressing on why people weren’t commenting (less than a third of comments from a year ago) I just went ‘meh, whatever’ and I have blogged every single day this week.
It won’t last. But it is pretty awesome just not caring.
Totally hitting home here since I haven’t posted in over 2 weeks and my reader is approaching the 300 point….
I restarted and re-found some of my old bloggy buddies…does that count? 😉
I’ve always had the commenting problem – receiving them, that is. But I’m okay with that. I consider blogging my own little version of therapy, and if someone stumbles upon it and it helps them at all (like I stumbled upon someone who had gone through something sort of similar, but the blog was a couple of years old, and it would have been silly for me to comment at that point), then all the better. 🙂
(The girl behind the former “Couldn’t Possibly Make This Up”)
I’ve read this post a few times because I really, really connected to it. It’s strange, isn’t it? That blogging has phases and its own life cycle. And how you meet people, and see them disappear, and wonder about them for a minute, and then totally forget about them because you’ve met new bloggers.
And I’ve thought a lot about the whole comment conundrum too. I read lots and lots of blogs that I don’t necessarily have a comment for, but feel like I should say something anyway. You know, just to let the writer know that I was there, reading and supporting them. All in all, though, it’s nice to have this community. Nice to know there are people out there we can connect with. Even if it’s not on a daily basis.
Oh this is terribly sexist 😉
Time. Time, time time.
This is really interesting and yes, I am guilty of a few of them already and I am not blogging all that long. It is nice to meet new people so I must make the effort more.
*waves at Marylin* 🙂
Jen
I love when you write about blogging. You always hit the nail on the head. You have your finger in the pulse of this whole blogging thing and then you wrap your brain around it and spit it back out for the rest of us to wrap our brains around. I LOVE IT!
Or, you go away for a month and wind up with 2k posts to read, and slowly cacth up and rarely comment.
I’m getting there
I swear!
Comments on this entry are closed.
{ 3 trackbacks }