Readers have come and gone, I've been voted 38th Best blog in the country (thanks Kidspot) and always, but always, I have taken pride and delight in the community that has evolved here.
As the popularity of blogs has increased so have the how-tos that float about, advice has included...
- People only read the first paragraph,
- keep it down to 160 characters because that's all people think in now,
- include photos,
- be informative,
- don't be informative,
- BE FUNNY,
- No, you MUST BE FUNNY
- Comment on everyone else's blog if you want them to comment on yours
- Include your children,
- Dont include your children unless you want to be accused of exploiting them,
- Be real,
- If you are real be prepared for nasty people to enjoy ripping you to shreds,
- have a theme,
- have a press page,
- advertise,
- make money,
- get overwhelmed,
- give up entirely...
Mostly I ignore this bullshit and walk to the beat of my own drum. I am a writer, and I write a lot. I like putting up photos, even if they are of my manky apples, so that is what I do. I have purposefully steered away from all but un-obtrusive advertising as I am not here to make a fortune (and who wants belly fat ads repeating over and over)... and so on.
Over time I've limited and limited what I write about here. The kids got older, I battled PND, we had financial issues, marriage issues, I stepped back from my writing career, we lived (and still live) under incredible stress, and at the end of it all discovered that our child had aspergers. I failed. I failed more times and in more ways than I ever imagined, and you know, I just didn't want those things hanging about on the internet for the rest of eternity.
Now I sit here and I don't know what to write any more. Mostly in the blogging world I'm seeing either complete dross, with blogs spouting more bullshit than all the 'women's magazines' put together. It didn't used to be here, that crap about how you 'must have a facial every 6 - 8 weeks - it will save you money, as blemishes are costly' (WTF??). Or I'm seeing the other end of the scale, Bloggers gaily writing about themselves sitting on the toilet, how the kid saw the tampon string, and how the latest apparently hilarious blog topic is the subject of the camel toe. Ug.
I suppose I just don't know where I fit into all this anymore. I actually found myself stressing about how the blog doesn't have a theme. Then I tried to convince myself that the theme is me and my life, then I stressed again because isn't that breathtakingly self-absorbed? Then I ate all Miss 6s jersey caramels and had to go to the shop to buy more.
So does this post have a point. Well, good question, I was just wondering that myself.
No. Not really.
I suppose I'm saying that this blog has become hard to write. That I'm feeling directionless at the moment. That I'm working on it. That I'm thinking of things. That maybe it'll change, or maybe it won't. But mostly that its hard to front up and crap on some days. Yep. That's what I'm saying.
