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New Value in Blogging
"Society is commonly too cheap. We meet at very short intervals, not having had time to acquire any new value for each other." --Henry David Thoreau
I've referred to this quotation from Walden before, but I want to bring it up again in the context of blogging. If you've followed me for very much of my going-on four-year run, you know that I've had some good runs where I blogged every day. The best one was 216 days in 2005, but if you look over the calendar up in the corner for any month in the past year or so, you'll see quite a few patches of unblogged days.
Sometimes, it's just a busy day, but often I just don't feel like I have much to blog about. Trying to blog daily, there are times where I just haven't been thinking about anything particularly interesting, haven't read anything inspiring, don't have anything amusing to say. In other words, I don't always feel like I have acquired any new value for my readers.
Still, I'd like to be able to blog every day, not just to satisfy the handful of readers I have, but because I like having something to write about. Life feels somehow more full when each day includes something that I'm glad to have written.
Your thoughts are, as always, most welcome.
I don't think blogging everyday is a necessity, nor does it necessarily
make a blog more interesting. It's all in what you've got to say.
Honestly, once someone knows your blog and you, and they like you, that is
what is of value to them.
We are prone to measuring and blogging is not always easy to measure. I
admire those who blog daily, but am not one of those, for odd reasons. I
can't seem to write short posts, quick blips and I am pained to watch my
older posts fall away as new ones are added. I end up posting 4-8 times a
month. Every now and then it jumps to 9 or 10 but that's pretty rare
(likely will happen more as we approach the general election). Some folks
measure by comments but I've never paid much attention to that either. For
me, it's search returns, placement in Google/Yahoo. I completely groove on
high Google placement and figuring out which search terms result in blog
traffic.
I find it harder to blog every day for exactly the same reason. I don't
always have anything to say. Sometimes, too, life just gets frenetic.
You'd think that would leave me with material, but not so. Anyway, when
you post, it's good stuff.