Sparky made a point the other day about blogging that resonated with me:
As much as I appreciate that there are people out there who have the focus to maintain a repository of targeted content, I still bristle at the idea of blogs as necessities, marketing tools, or places that have to be about just one thing. When I read someone saying that they have six blogs about different topics, I wonder why they don’t just have one that’s mostly about the six things that interest them so much, and anything else they throw in. It’s still the person that’s the point for me.
I’ve sometimes wished that I could stick to one thing on this blog. Unfortunately, I have too many interests and a fickle mind. This is not a recipe for consistency.
Many of us pre-9/11 bloggers still marvel at how blogging changed after that date. The rise of the warbloggers led to the rise of the political blogs. Blogging had been represented by Jason Kottke, but now it was represented by Little Green Footballs and Andrew Sullivan. (Actually, Sullivan has a pretty good blog, a mix of politics and “hey look at this”-type posts; the only problem is that he blogs so damn much that you practically have to be a full-time Andrew Sullivan reader to keep up. Who has the time?)
Blogging can’t just be fun anymore, apparently. Now it has to have a mission, a purpose.
Sometimes I wish I had a blog that focused on a single topic and got linked and quoted all over the place and could lead to a book deal. Not gonna happen — I don’t have the discipline or, again, the consistency. Plus, I just can’t write that fast. Prose does not tumble elegantly out of my brain. Rather, words spurt out erratically, like a broken faucet. Listening to me type at the keyboard can be weird. Dadadadadadadada dat dat dat (that last part is the sound of me backspacing because I mistyped, which I do all the time — I never learned to type properly). Dadadadadada — dat dat — dadadadada… (long pause)… dadadadadada dat dat dat dat dadadadada (long pause) dadadadada dat dat dat dadadadada.
My blog is just a place for me to be me and express whatever thoughts and ideas I feel like expressing. It’s for me, it’s not for other people.
Oh well. So much for success.
I appreciate your blog (Matt’s, too). Some of us are too damn eclectic for this world.
Hey, Jeff. I like your blog just the way it is. It is an expression of you, and that’s all it really needs to be. At least, that’s how I look at mine. I have my interests that I often focus on as do you. But as a good post-modernist I decry the need to be shackled by purpose. A blog should be for its own sake.
I totally agree with you, Jeff. But I actually think it is harder to write a long-standing, interesting blog about yourself and what interests you than to become a psuedo-expert on one topic and drive toward a book deal.
Honestly, I don’t think most people know themselves well enough to maintain it. Or they are too afraid people might figure out who they really are.
I’ve been enjopying your stuff for..(counting on my fingers)…five years. I’m glad there are still blogs like yours out there.
I don’t think there’s any one “right” way to blog. But the ones I enjoy reading the most let a little bit of the blogger’s personality and life experience and point of view come through. They’re conversational.
I also think blogging is a short-form medium, a visual medium. I think you do all of those things very well.
When I started, I thought I’d be more of a generalist. Now, I probably write mostly about theatre, which is what got me into the blogosphere in the first place as a reader. It’s been kind of fun to focus on one thing. But I always reserve the right to go off on tangents!