Bloggers! Ever find yourself asking Big Questions like these, and then wanting to hide under the internet bed for a Very Long Time, clutching at your non-existent cyber-blanket and desperately searching for Tron so that you can cry on his shoulder?
1. Why the hell am I doing this again?
2. Who the bloody hell are all these people, and what do they want?
3. Oh Jesus, whatever was I thinking when I wrote *that*?
4. Why can't I be all funny and clever like [insert name of every other blogger here]?
5. Oh. My. God. My Dad's discovered my blog. What do I do now?
6. Why has so-and-so linked to me?
7. Why hasn't so-and-so linked to me?
8. Why did I leave that stupid comment in that place all those months ago?
9. How am I ever going to find the time to resurrect the lost language of the Picts, write my dissertation, read all those improving books, develop some half-arsed New Theory of Blogging, and do all the usual worky/domesticky stuff, if all I do all day is check my stats?
10. Why don't I just delete the statcounter?
11. Why don't I just delete the whole blog?
12. Help.
If this is you, don't despair. Auntie Patroclus is here to guide you through the bad times, with soothing platitudes like "It's a new frontier for all of us. No one knows what the rules are. We're just going to have to make it up as we go along. Hang in there."
I need to get out more. I know, I'll go and watch up-and-coming West London noiseniks Anarchic Hand play an eardrum-bothering gig in a public toilet. God bless electro-punk rock, quite frankly.
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16 comments:
you have described me in 12 handy steps
ok, i'm askin':
auntie P - what in tarnation am i to do? i am on the brink of my 200th post and a week away from my blog's first birthday and yet i am full of blog-related self-loathing
Oh dear, I suggest we start a 12 step program but UC, you can actually make it 13 or 14 steps and just count them wrong.
The first step would be to admit we are powerless over our desire to blog.
P-I had a blogging crisis last week and actually deleted my blog but made anew one because I came to realize how important it is to me.
we're all in this together I guess.
Bonus points if you start up a crowd chant of "STFU!" at the gig.
I too occasionally have the existential crisis thing with my blog.
But then I remember that my mum reads it and she gets to see what I'm doing over here, and so I persevere.
Plus I do love talking about myself.
>>2. Who the bloody hell are all these people, and what do they want?>>
*Puts hand up sheepishly*. If you mean who was the person with the unknown IP address looking through a load of your blog posts last night. Er, that was me. 'Borrowing' my neighbour's WiFi. Sorry for any paranoia caused...
>>But then I remember that my mum reads it<<
Cleavers: um, yes, this is more or less what prompted the existential crisis in the first place. Only in my case, the other way round. See 5.
Closely followed by 2., which the naughty Tabby Rabbit has just explained. And to think I spent *hours* last night on the website of a lovely couple called Paul and Emily, thinking "who the hell are these people, and why are they so interested in my life?".
Got to delete that statcounter.
UC: It's a new frontier for all of us. No one knows what the rules are. We're just going to have to make it up as we go along. Hang in there.
Hey, I could get the hang of this blogging agony auntism.
Oo, and my other useless bit of advice is: "No one worries about your blog as much as you do." And by "you" I mean "one", not specifically you, UC.
Oh yeah definitely - the brave new 21st century world. Roll up, roll up for the blog ride of a life time - hang on to your seats because we don't know where we are going and it is going to be a bumpy trip. And even if we did it is too late because the roller coaster has left the station and there is no way off now...
Well.. maybe you can but you know what I mean.
And christ to think - in the 60s they only had acid.
qzesuum: answers to questions that haven't been asked yet.
Auntie P: How many times are you allowed to visit someone else's blog in a given day? And can I get RSI from pressing 'refresh'?
TR: As long as you've got your handy internet anonymising software (*cough*), or you're hitching a free ride on Paul and Emily's WiFi connection, As Often As You Like.
I've just been tickled by the thought of Paul and Emily (god bless them) looking in their visitor stats and wondering what the hell this strange person was doing wandering around their wedding website for hours last night.
tabby - it's certainly making my RSI worse.
I blog because it makes me happy. That's all.
i don't know why i do it. narcissism, i expect.
except right now this minute i don't want to do it any more. i expect it'll pass.
The stat counter thing is a pain in the arse, particularly as you know certain people haven't enabled cookies. But I like to think of blogging as doodling, or a warm-up down the gym, if you catch my drift. The trouble is, it takes time to doodle so I have no time to think of working on anything more substantial. There's not a day goes by when I don't think of deleting the damn thing. But I haven't.
Obviously.
Well it's like a metaphysical (and I don't know what that word means, but I'm going to use it anyway!) version of the whole "why are we here?" question, isn't it? Deleting your blog would be like a mini-suicide.
Only less painful and gruesome, obviously. Plus you get to carry on living afterwards. Like having infinite lives in a computer game.
Oo, theory! As Alicia Silverstone probably never said.
I had an odd train of thought just now which concluded with 'your blog might turn you into Gollum'. Which I thought might be such a worrying prospect that I decided not to post it. Then I saw the word verification.
smenita : cheese Ryvita
I tend to forget that what I write is there for all time. ooops many times over.
I also live in fear that my mother may suddenly decide to take it into her head to actually use the internet & find my blog *gulp*
And I am sure I would be dooced like a shot if my employers even glanced at it!
But screw em all, is what I say.
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