The Lonely Blog
It is a constant source of wonder to me, often of awe, that so many bloggers are able to spend as much time as they do, composing and posting their entries. Daily entries, sometimes numerous entries per day, truly amazing. Are they speed-bloggers, writers who are able to knock out a comlpete and edited post at the speed of light? Are they gifted with the capacity to simply sit at their keyboards and dash off a worthy post?
How do they do it, I wonder. Time is on their side, or so it seems.
Sure, some blogs are nothing more than linkfests, listing cool, interesting, often humorous other places to click and visit. And yet others are short little two or three sentence stream of blog-consciousness posts, little emotional or observational entries.
But then there are the writers, serious bloggers, with posts of depth and substance. If it were this blogger in their shoes (or perhaps better put, at their keyboards, since we all know that many bloggers are in their pajamas, if in anything at all)
In my case it usually takes time, effort, aforethought, some cogitation, and a bunch of editing. In some cases I've gone back and edited older posts, just to better the turn of a phrase or to improve the grammar. Entries are usually thought pieces, even if light-hearted in nature. Proper word content, use of language, overall content and tone of the blogged entry -- are of critical importance to me.
This leaves me in awe and a little envious of those able to post prodigiously, with regularity.
In my case it is a matter of time. There's work to do: obligations, necessities, often very time consuming and leaving little of the energy and concentration required for a blog post. This item has been spinning around in my head for a few weeks now. Bits and pieces of it were posted in files, on scraps of paper, and in my cranium. It took time to gather scraps, collect thoughts, compose and edit, and feel right about posting it.
And then there were some external issues, as well.
I see from the referrer logs and hit counts that there are still a good many readers checking in to see what's here. Aggregators also indicate some activity, but that is more the case of a "new post measurement metric." than not. E-mail comes from some readers, and friends and colleagues tease me about the lag between posts. One regular reader whom I know only via e-mail writes to comment on missing seeing new posts at DeanLand, and notes that when logging in to the blog they see that Dylan post, nothing new, no change. The same old post, just lingering there. That post became so visually familiar, the e-mail correspondent writes, that it began to seem lonely. "DeanLand," the e-mail said, "the lonely blog."
That did it. No matter what -- workload, Yankee games, obligations of various sorts -- a new blogpost was in the cards. Next task: finish some of those other posts in various stages of composition, get some pictures up on Flickr and blog those, and cut down the lag time between posts. Seems like the best way to treat "the lonely blog."