I found an interesting story on Slate. It is by Sarah Hepola who says she is taking down her blog. Since I have been blogging since 2002 and now have seven different blogs, this interested me. Why would she want to shut it down?
I found out from reading the article that it is because blogs tend to make thoughts come out in little dribbles. You blog something every week or every day. You don't have that much time in a day so you tend to come out in little pieces. Sarah said she would start on her novel and come up with five different blogs instead. I have that problem at times, as well. I tend to come up with these little thoughts, so I write up Toastmaster speeches (really these are spoken blogs) or blogs about it. I might write one on fireflies, another on the Defense of Marriage Act ("DUMBA"), still another on a possible hurricane or a skywatch and so forth. So I can't come up with anything substantial, like a novel, book on fireflies, or book on astronomy at skywatches. I'm not a firefly expert at all, for instance. And my blogs started to all get meshed with each other and hard to find or read through. That is why I made up seven blogs, one for each of my interests - religion, astronomy and nature, peak oil, mathematics, weather, my own opinions on things (usually political), and general subjects, which is what this blog, Blogtrek, is about.
So do I come up with substantial things? I used to. I wrote a 60-page thesis to obtain my doctorate at Northwestern in 1972. Right now I am writing a story. I started it last summer and am still writing it - it is now 41 pages long, entitled "The Moving Picture" about a picture of a nude couple that keeps turning up in the wrong place all the time. I would write a little bit at a time, and sometimes my writing drives the story in unforeseen ways; for example, a lovemaking scene all at once turns into one where the man calls another woman to talk about traffic jams. But I have kept at work on the story. I don't know if it is publishable - probably not, right now - but I have kept at it.
Maybe when I blog I feel like I have to have a finished product right away, and so I write something up quick, and it is short. The same with a Toastmaster speech. I usually come up with something on the spur of the moment, and it is only 5-7 minutes in length, the length of a standard Toastmaster speech. In any case I don't think that quitting blogging will help me to write a novel or finish "The Moving Picture".
What it is is that one can't complete a big project in a day so one spends all his time with little projects and so doesn't get anything notable done. I suppose the only way to handle this is to do the big project a little bit at a time. If it is cleaning the attic, sort a box a day. If it's building a house, build a few boards a day. If I want to write a novel, write a scene or a piece of a scene every day. That is what I am doing with "The Moving Picture". And it's the same way with establishing a business, writing a doctoral thesis, or anything big. Big things start from little ones. Has Sarah tried writing part of a novel in a blog every day? Maybe I could write a blognovel. I have been thinking of writing one about a boy's (and later man's) fascination with railroad tracks and trains.
And she remarks that she can keep it secret or make it open, or at least pretend these things. Why blog? One could write a book and get it published, or write a personal diary in a diary book or on the computer without putting it on the web. Maybe blogging revolves around this wondering if someone is going to see it, and if so, what is their reaction to it. It's that sense of the unknown seeing you and appreciating you that puts some of the zest in blogging. Perhaps this gets too much for some, perhaps for Sarah right now. But eventually I will wind up (and probably so will Sarah) blogging again.
Thus endeth my self-referential blogging on blogging.
A Journey through Blogrealm