Blogging - joy or burden?

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One of the problems I have with blogging is actually writing – the act of putting thoughts to paper in some coherent fashion.

I have never been a journal keeper (the thought of filling a diary or journal with my uncensored thoughts holds no appeal to me – I am private and I keep my innermost thoughts to myself).

So … this blog was never an attempt at being an online diary or journal. It exists for numerous reasons, one of which is the desire for publicity and the need for privacy, this blog exists.

I have no shortage of ideas or a lack of desire to blog … but, I have no desire to ramble, nor be didactic – so nice crisp, reasonably focussed entries are not always forthcoming.

Anyway, I prefer to engage in discourse rather than soliloquy.

I suppose part of the problem is that I am not sufficiently narcissistic to write only for myself, nor do I do not really target any particular audience.

Originally, I imagined I would blog on a diverse miscellany of topics – but I soon realized that it is rather difficult to do without being impersonal or preachy or opinionated.

People who think they know it all are especially annoying to those of us who do. – Anonymous (on an engraved paper weight Sofia gave me)

Comments

my imperfect offering said…
When I first started blogging, it felt like a burden. Then I started kind of getting the hang of it, and it became fun and it felt like a joy. Then I somehow lost my "blogging rhythm", and it's back to feeling like a burden again. Well, maybe not a burden, but it silently mocks me when I'm not posting. ;)
March 23, 2006 2:53 PM
buzybee said…
Why would writing for yourself be "narcissistic"?

It's healthy to write for yourself, especially if you are one who finds it difficult to do so offline. Blogging is a way to release your inner thoughts that might have been trapped.

I find it a joy to blog, 'cos I do so for myself. I can be myself, and be natural with my thoughts. I don't feel any pressure to cook up anything, if I don't feel like blogging on any day. :)
March 24, 2006 10:10 AM
Richard said…
MIO: When I started, it felt odd. I am not used to publicly expressing my thoughts - privately, sure, publicly - no.

I think one of the problems is (for me) the feeling that the next post following an absence, needs to be "bigger and better" to some how compensate for the lack of content.

I think you are right about having a rhythm. It is all too easy to simply not post regularly (not necessarily daily).

For example, my own (wholly arbitrary rules) say that I don't post more than one entry per day.

bee: you cannot tell me that you blog solely for yourself. In some manner, you desire to share your thoughts with the world, otherwise you would not blog - which is fairly public (although, to be honest, the number of people tripping over my blog is not exactly legion - so the internet is not exactly the busy marketplace we are often lead to believe).

Part of the reason I blog is the hope of finding engaging people to hmmm ... erm ... well ... engage with.

Writing is narcissistic when it is self-indulgent writing for oneself with disregard or disdain of others - but if that were the case, then you wouldn't enable comments would you?
March 24, 2006 4:59 PM
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