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beaver, business of art workshops, cobwebs, cobwebs growing on wordpress blogs, driver's test, garden, grad party, horses, long in the tooth, readership stats, summer in minnesota, the soul patch, too busy to blog, weeding, weeds
We have a small garden in our yard. The state of this garden was appalling as of early yesterday morning.
Weedy garden at the Warner house, June 19, 2010
We have not had time to weed our tiny garden patch due to preparations for Daughter’s grad party, assisting Young Son with studying for his written driver’s test, work, and a number of other priorities. I’ve also been attending workshops on the business of art throughout June and had two sessions this past week. Plus, it’s summer in Minnesota, and when it’s summer in Minnesota, the weather insists we spend as much time outside as possible.
This busy-ness has also led to a weedy, cob-webby, long-in-the tooth* blog. While blog neglect isn’t apparent through an excess of weeds on the screen, cobwebs covering the corners**, or extra long teeth, I definitely see it in my readership stats. A few months ago, I was consistently seeing 100 views per day, but I only seem to see that now when I’ve posted. On the days I don’t post, I tend to get 50 or 60 views per day. While that’s nothing to sneeze at, I’ve gotten spoiled by my 100 views per day, so would like to bring my stats back to that point, which means posting more often.
I’ve also noticed that when I neglect my blog, I get edgy because I miss blogging. If that’s not a sure sign that blogging is “real” writing, I don’t know what is. (Could I please slap whoever first indicated that blogging wasn’t real writing? Dear God, I can’t seem to get over that mental hump. Maybe I ought to slap myself and knock that thought right out of my head.)
Yesterday, I finally had time to work on weeding the garden. I didn’t finish, but made serious progress.
Partially weeded garden at the Warner house, June 19, 2010. Looking much better, wouldn't you say?
I also wrote a blog post, but not here. I tend to Erik’s blog for The Soul Patch Community Garden and updated followers on the garden’s status last night. Just the act of blogging, even though it wasn’t on The Woo Woo Teacup Journal, dissipated my lack-of-blogging edginess. Ahhhhh!
I’ve got a number of things to report here, observations & happenings of the last week or so, but I also know better than to throw too many blog posts at you at once (you’re all busy, too), so I’ll try to feed them to you one at a time.
Now that I’ve tended to the blogging, I must finish weeding the garden.
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* The traditional meaning of the phrase “long in the tooth” is “old” and refers to the age of horses in relation to their teeth. I’m using the phrase a little differently here, instead referring to neglect in relation to rodent teeth. If a rodent, say, a beaver, doesn’t continually chew on wood, its teeth will continue to grow and grow and grow until it can’t eat. (I’m not opposed to making sh*t up if it will help illustrate my point. 
)
** Here’s an idea for WordPress! If they can figure out how to program snow to fall on a blog during the winter months, why couldn’t they create code that will cause cobwebs to form on neglected blogs? Of course, I would make this an optional setting that allows for the blog owner to decide when the cobwebs would appear.
“…….A few months ago, I was consistently seeing 100 views per day, but I only seem to see that now when I’ve posted. On the days I don’t post, I tend to get 50 or 60 views per day……..”
It appears that you don’t experience large numbers of viewers as a burden which makes you feel an inchoate need to write to your viewers expectations as you perceive them.
I, for what its worth, feel freer the less viewers I get.
Hi, Phil – I had to look up ‘inchoate,’ having heard the word before, but not being familiar with its meaning. I see that it basically means ‘formless’ or ‘incoherent.’ I’m not sure that my desire to write in order to meet reader expectations is formless or incoherent. For me, having a blog is a means to write what I like while also providing readers with entertainment and/or useful information. If there isn’t something interesting on my blog, why would readers return? (Why would I return if I couldn’t even keep myself entertained?)
Further, in my estimation, the audience is an important part of blogging. If I didn’t want people to read my work, I’d keep it in a private journal tucked in a filing cabinet or under my bed. Having 50 to 100 views is not a burden, although if I started seeing 1,000 or more views in a day, I’m sure I’d have to rethink my blogging process because I’d likely end up with more comments to respond to.
As for your comment about feeling freer with fewer viewers, I think it’s great that you understand what your audience threshold is in regards to your writing process. All writers should strive to have a feeling for our audience set points, both in terms of numbers and in relation to meeting their needs versus meeting our own through writing.
Thanks for your comment. It gave me an opportunity to think about what I’m trying to achieve in terms of writing for my readers.
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