Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Guilt-Free Blogging

A big pet peeve of mine is bloggers who start off their entries apologizing for how long it's been since they last posted. This bugs me for two reasons. The first is that it may be a new blog I'm checking out and if I've never read it before I really don't care that it's been 2 weeks since the last post. I probably have months if not years worth of entries to catch up on.

The second reason is that being a sensitive kind of person I feel as though I'm shouldering some of their guilt for infrequent blog publishing. When I go to read someone's blog I view it as a leisurely escape from other things in my life such as working, cleaning, and paying bills. I have enough guilt for not spending enough time on the things I'm supposed to be doing that I really don't need to feel anyone else's guilt.

It's especially bad on podcasts where they really belabor the point. I've heard podcasters go on for 5 minutes on the air about how busy they've been with school and work and kids and blah, blah, blah. Here's news for all you bloggers and podcasters out there. Unless you're a friend of mine I really don't care about what's going on in your personal life that's preventing you from posting frequently. I just want to know about your knitting life. If you want to throw in something interesting or life-changing such as pics from a trip you've taken or you just had a baby or got married or started a new job that's cool but don't apologize endlessly for it.

Think about when you watch a television series. Often a weekly drama series won't air for two weeks or more because of a sporting event or awards show. When the show comes back on the air does a big disclaimer flash across the screen at the start of prime time apologizing for making you wait? No, of course not. They just get right into the action. There's only so much time and what we really want to know is whether George is going to leave his wife or stare at Izzie all season with those puppy dog eyes of his.

I've often been tempted to fall into the same trap with my posts. Instead I remind myself that no one wants to hear it and just start in with the good stuff. I encourage everyone else to do the same.

5 comments:

Alyssa said...

I admit I have done this...and recently.

ekgheiy said...

Well said. A blog is really what the author makes of it. Although, I must admit that I lose interest and pretty much steer clear of blogs that haven't had a post in half a year, especially if the post before the last post was two years ago. Of course, I'm exaggerating a bit; but you get my drift. ;)

Perhaps I'm a bad blog reader? *teehee*

Dame Wendy said...

Interesting topic.

I think that for a lot of bloggers and podcasters they don't consider their readers or listeners "fans" like a television show and instead consider them friends. In the knitting community that's especially true. Friends usually are interested in whats going on and why it's been so long. Those are the ones I usually comment on.

Blogs are essentially diaries, public diaries, but still there will almost always be a personal note to the way people write and connect with the reader.

The blogs/podcasts that get paid to write or record and remain detached but totally entertaining, professional and don't go in to all the inconsequential personal stuff, I think, are different than your every day blogger/podcaster.

My $0.02 :)

Alyssa said...

I had an idea...ok actually a glenned it from someone's blog but...oh...moving on to my point. We should do a yarn crawl and just go from shop to shop as a knitting group. It could be fun for a saturday or sunday activity and I'm sure the stores would LOVE it. As long as there weren't a millions of us.

lekkercraft said...

Hi! I've tagged you. See my blog for details and play along if you'd like to. Take care!