I feel that I should warn anyone who might read this that I don't anticipate this post to be interesting to anyone other than myself.
I have been thinking a lot lately about this blog. I have not been doing this for very long, and I don't really know why I started. I guess I just wanted to see if I could keep something like this going. Now that I know that I can, I have to figure out why I keep going. What is the point of what I am doing here?
I think it is safe to say that most all people who maintain blogs want other people to read it. Otherwise, it would be a lot easier to open up a Word document everyday and write there. Although I didn't really think much would come of this place when I started, I do have to admit that it is nice to know at least a couple of people out there read what I write. But, do they get anything out of what they read? There are a million blogs on the internet, covering many different topics. What would a reader get out of my blog that they can't get many other places? What would make this blog a needle in the haystack, not just another piece of hay?
I spent a lot of time early on thinking about my "blog voice". How should my posts sound? How much should I focus on science versus education versus my personal life? Are there any areas that I can write about from the "expert" point of view? Would there be more value in posting my thoughts on current events or examine more timeless topics? However, I realized that I was spending a lot more time thinking about how to post then I did what do post and my writing was suffering. So, I decided that I should just write whatever seemed to be on my mind and let my "voice" be whatever came out.
Now, however, I think I could probably do with some more blog introspection. What, really, am I doing here?
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3 other thoughts:
You are right - just keep writing and the voice will come out on itself. Write what you want, not what you think readers want. Have fun. It's your blog, not ours, we are just voyeours!
True. I think I am just working on reconciling the fact that this is my blog for my words with the fact that blogs are, almost by definition, a public forum designed with readers in mind.
Of course, the whole issue might be irrelevant given how few actually read this stuff!
The coolest thing I've found about the blog world -- and I've been at it, what, a month, though of course I was an avid reader before that -- is the connections you make with other bloggers. It's a small world, I mean, I'm writing from Korea, but hell, you could've met my mother at a conference!
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