Why Blog?

J. Alan Erwine put me on his blog roll. I know he occasionally drops by, because he has made some interesting comments, but I am used to being mostly ignored on the internet. Except for a couple of mentions in BoingBoing.net, I think that I am a fairly anonymous guy. Google me, though, and you get over 100,000 hits – not all of which are mine. (There is a talented web designer in the UK, another programmer in the Northwest, and a popular minister in the Midwest with my name.) The page count is not because I am famous, it is just because that I’ve been around for a while. There are even references to software that I wrote in 1983. Most of the Google page count means nothing to me in the context of the present.

How should I feel about people reading my blog? I fill the pages with old memories, gossipy news about my family and poker buddies, an occasional cat story, technical stuff about my websites, writing (or lack thereof), and programming projects. Most of it is really not interesting to anyone who doesn’t know me. The blog gets a few hundred readers a day, though. Who are you people? Do I know you?

This begs the question, why should I blog?

1) The main legit reason for me to blog is that it gives me Back-Links to my web sites that sites like Technorati and Google use to rank my other website pages. Blogs are an effective way to create valid cross-links. Whenever I make a post, I use Pin-O-Matic to notify all of the blog aggregators about the update. Almost all of my web pages are Google page rank 4 or higher. I credit the blog for much of this.

2) A semi-legit reason for the blog is to notify my small blog readership of interesting events and thereby generate traffic. For instance, when I blogged about my story that came out recently in the Harrow, I noticed about 30 outbound links to read the story. This makes me look good over at the Harrow and so maybe they’ll publish another story, that is, if they analyze their stats, and if I ever write another story in their style. (tech note: If you have a blog, go to mybloglog.com, register and put the code on your blog template. It will give you some interesting facts about your blog readership.)

3) A not-so-legit reason to blog is ego. I act self-deprecating, but I find myself seeking approval. I don’t approve of my approval seeking, though, and self-edit, hence the (false) self-deprecation.

4) I need to write. Many of my entries are more like articles. I want to develop a good story and tell it. One of my favorite blog entries is The Kid Loves Pook from February, 2005. I thought that this was an interesting romantic tale, even though no one read it. I don’t have time to write a 4,000 word story, but I can throw 400 words into a blog post and get the same satisfaction. In this case, it is the writing that offers some satisfaction and it matters only a little that no one reads it.

5) The least legit reason to blog is to have something – anything, on the blog. I am afraid that if I don’t come up with an entry every few days, you will all go away and not come back. Even when I have nothing that fits 1-4 above, I can come up with a cute thought or a link to an interesting site. These are maintenance posts and I am not proud of them.

There are a few good reasons not to blog.

1) It is best to be anonymous in these dangerous times. Erica has asked me to take off information about her, and occasionally she asks me to remove stuff that I have revealed about myself because it could be damaging. Erica has the common sense in our family.

2) You can’t take it back. I could say something that offends or hurts someone and it will be in the nets forever. WayBackMachine.org has a database of most web pages going back ten years. Google has a cache that will show the original version of a page if it has been changed recently. If I make a mistake or regret something that I’ve written, it doesn’t matter if I recant it. It will follow me around forever, even if I delete the post. At any time, the right search engine query will display anything that I’ve done and said, no matter how stupid. It might be better not to blog at all than to record in stone just what a jerk I am.

3) I am not a good judge as to what is good and interesting. “90% is crap” is the rule of thumb. I can’t tell if it is crap or not, so I just blog it. I don’t want to blog 90% crap, so I convince myself the percentage is somewhat less than 90.

4) People that you meet on the internet seem different, interesting and mostly very nice. The few that I have met in person, however, have been crazy, obnoxious, and/or scary. The internet is a mask. I fool myself into thinking that you all are not bat-shit crazy. This is something that you have to be aware of when you blog. (Especially genre writers seem to be “A Bubble Off Plumb” as my grandfather used to say – no offense guys)

There are the pros and cons. Overall; blogging has been a very positive experience. I would recommend it to every writer. Write an entry every day. Use it to keep your skills up. Use it to challenge you with alternative approaches to old problems. Just be aware of the proper reasons to blog. Be aware of its dangers. Be aware that no one is reading it.

Most of all remember there is an insane person planning to kill you because of some off-hand remark that you wrote in your blog, but have fun with it anyway.

2 Comments

  1. Chris Bartholomew wrote:

    bat-shit crazy…ROFLMAO
    Never heard that one before, lol, too funny.
    I read the blog…

    Wednesday, July 26, 2006 at 12:40 pm | Permalink
  2. Keith wrote:

    bat-shit crazy might be a local term. Both my brother and I use it, but it could be something we picked up while staying with our southern relatives. (Even though I was raised a New York boy, I was born in North Carolina.)

    Wednesday, July 26, 2006 at 2:28 pm | Permalink