BlogAngst
I'm tryin' awful hard not to obsess over the SiteMeter reports... Jeez, you get within spittin' distance of 1000 unique hits and you go all girlish with anticipation. God, I annoy myself sometimes.
See, there's the rational side of me that knows that building a blog takes time. I've only been reading blogs (on a daily, never-miss-it basis) since August of 2003 or thereabouts, when I discovered Rob's daily tale of pain & misery. Since that time I've seen quite a few blogs start up. Most, but not all, go through months of obscurity, and then start to take off. Some never do. A lot just suck. I've seen a few die, and a few reborn. Some need to hurry up and get reborn. Hear me, Jim?
The dreamer side of me want to pull hundreds of hits an hour, crank out enough ad revenue for beer & ammo money, and just be a part of the blog community. It wants to go to blogmeets. And it wants to do it now.
The realistic side says "Hold on there, hoss. You been readin' blogs for quite a spell. You comment every so often, but that's not the same as puttin' out content! Pay some dues before you start bitching!"
I hate my realistic side. It's right just a little too often.
The skeptical side (I gotta lot of sides...) says "Just admit it. You're nowhere as good a storyteller as Lileks. You can't do satire like Frank J. You're not a good enough cook to foodblog like Steve. You have nowhere near the stamina of Glenn. You can't rant like Misha. You don't have one tenth the gun collection as Kim or 1/100th the collection of John. You could outdrink Wonkette, though, and you can definitely kick Kos's ass." (No links for those last two. If they want links, they can get their sugardaddies to pay for them.)
Well, the skeptical side occasionally can be considered an asset, at least where liberal blogs are concerned.
The introspective side asks "Why are you doing this? Why are you wasting time posting about cats and guns and fundamental human rights when you should be working on the dozen or so novels you've got percolating in your skull? Are you doing this to blow some pressure off and just get some words out? Are you only looking for the ego boost?"
That may be closer to the truth than I'm comfortable admitting. It wasn't an accident that I labeled the sidebar trackers the "Ego-Meter". I get a kick out of knowing people like my stuff. I get responses all the time from people I know who have gotten one of my email diatribes and laughed themselves silly. I hear all the time "Why aren't you a writer?" (for the same reason your talented guitar-playing kid is pumping gas... there's a lot of starving artists out there!)
My prescient side knows what advice from other bloggers would be. "Relax. Build your own voice. Let your style develop as it will. Quit reading Tech Central Station so much and get back to blogging!"
But it's so damned frustrating, just waiting. Last time I felt like this was when I was 15, and the months before I could get my driver's license just stretched on forever.
I survived that. I can do this. Damned instant gratification gene... gotta get that spliced out in a few years.
See, there's the rational side of me that knows that building a blog takes time. I've only been reading blogs (on a daily, never-miss-it basis) since August of 2003 or thereabouts, when I discovered Rob's daily tale of pain & misery. Since that time I've seen quite a few blogs start up. Most, but not all, go through months of obscurity, and then start to take off. Some never do. A lot just suck. I've seen a few die, and a few reborn. Some need to hurry up and get reborn. Hear me, Jim?
The dreamer side of me want to pull hundreds of hits an hour, crank out enough ad revenue for beer & ammo money, and just be a part of the blog community. It wants to go to blogmeets. And it wants to do it now.
The realistic side says "Hold on there, hoss. You been readin' blogs for quite a spell. You comment every so often, but that's not the same as puttin' out content! Pay some dues before you start bitching!"
I hate my realistic side. It's right just a little too often.
The skeptical side (I gotta lot of sides...) says "Just admit it. You're nowhere as good a storyteller as Lileks. You can't do satire like Frank J. You're not a good enough cook to foodblog like Steve. You have nowhere near the stamina of Glenn. You can't rant like Misha. You don't have one tenth the gun collection as Kim or 1/100th the collection of John. You could outdrink Wonkette, though, and you can definitely kick Kos's ass." (No links for those last two. If they want links, they can get their sugardaddies to pay for them.)
Well, the skeptical side occasionally can be considered an asset, at least where liberal blogs are concerned.
The introspective side asks "Why are you doing this? Why are you wasting time posting about cats and guns and fundamental human rights when you should be working on the dozen or so novels you've got percolating in your skull? Are you doing this to blow some pressure off and just get some words out? Are you only looking for the ego boost?"
That may be closer to the truth than I'm comfortable admitting. It wasn't an accident that I labeled the sidebar trackers the "Ego-Meter". I get a kick out of knowing people like my stuff. I get responses all the time from people I know who have gotten one of my email diatribes and laughed themselves silly. I hear all the time "Why aren't you a writer?" (for the same reason your talented guitar-playing kid is pumping gas... there's a lot of starving artists out there!)
My prescient side knows what advice from other bloggers would be. "Relax. Build your own voice. Let your style develop as it will. Quit reading Tech Central Station so much and get back to blogging!"
But it's so damned frustrating, just waiting. Last time I felt like this was when I was 15, and the months before I could get my driver's license just stretched on forever.
I survived that. I can do this. Damned instant gratification gene... gotta get that spliced out in a few years.
posted by El Capitan | 5:24 PM
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