The introductions to the 30/30 posts have morphed into a meta-blog dealing with what I should be talking about in separate posts rather than serving as a preamble to the music. Now that I have sworn off electronica as a subject for the meme, I might as well abjure writing about non-musical things in musical posts.
I’m having that discussion in my head again. The one that all bloggers have. The one that says, “Am I in to blogging for the pure self-expression, or do I need a significant audience to make this worthwhile?” That having been said, I love the two bloggers (both of whom I know in meatspace) who consistently comment on this blog. And I realize that the the heyday of blogging is over, except for brands (Dooce) and niche bloggers (Daily Kos). I don’t think that even if I courted fame that I will ever reach my biggest day of 141 page views, which was over a year and a half ago. . . . Boring, sorry. Actually, this came to mind because a number of my Facebook friends posted a link to an actual blog post from The Bloggess, and I wondered how long it had been since I had seen a link that wasn’t to a newspaper article, op/ed piece, or some sort of “real” journalism. Perhaps it’s because I’m not reading my feed in the right way. Do people have the itch anymore to write medium- and long- form pieces any more, and does Facebook prevent that kind of thinking? Granted, I could probably increase my audience by linking this blog to my FB and Twitter accounts, but thosehave my real name on them, and (a) there are some that I don’t want reading this, and (b) I don’t want to paw through my archives to see if I’v written something offensive somewhere. Ach, this meta-blogging is tedious!
The cough is still here, and the cold sweat still clings to my body as I feel the cool evening breeze. It is a mercy that the temperatures have not been so terribly elevated. It’s working its way through me and will, I trust, be gone by the weekend. I wonder if taking tiny sips of Robitussin whenever I feel above a certain level of awful is just as good as taking the recommended dose and then waiting on tenterhooks for four hours. We’ll find out now, won’t we?
As those of you who know me on Facebook, know, Daughter #1 and I went to a reading on Monday by the YA author John Green. He and I are graduates of the same little college, but were eight-and-a-half years apart, and so had no reason to know each other. I had introduced D#1 to his work An Abundance of Katherines through a gently edited reading of it to her (replacing a lot of the f-word, and some of the sexuality). His most famous book is Looking for Alaska, which opens with a description of oral sex, so I had to avoid that one. She liked the former, and when I saw that Green (who lives in Indianapolis) was coming to our local branch library, I thought I’d bring her to her first reading. She has also encountered him online as one of the Nerdfighting Vlogbrothers (no, I’m not going to explain that one, you’ll have to look it up for yourself.)
We had signed up for it about a month ago, and luckily, she had fallen in the age limit that they were taking, though there seemed to be no bouncer at the door, which made me wonder why they had the sign-up in the first place. The crowd was a good cross-section of high school nerddom, many with John-Green-inspired shirts, and most with copies of his books to sign. We didn’t have a copy, but luckily the local Borders had copies right there, so we picked one up. Needless to say, Daughter #1 jumped right into it, presumably to see all of the good stuff that I had left out. She was definitely the youngest in the room, which put me a bit on edge, as I didn’t want to be accused of being a bad daddy. The room was full to capacity, though not stifling, when the author strode to the stage.
A very compelling speaker, he ran through a bunch of topics in his 45 minutes, reading from an unpublished zombie story of his, and a to-be-published novel. In the Q&A, there were some good questions, and the English minor in me liked his easy referencing of Twain and Orwell. The line to get signed was long, but moved quickly, as he was very good at engaging each person, mostly through the t-shirt they wore or their name. He also encouraged us to all sign his copy of Looking for Alaska. We were among the last to do both, and this was fortuitous, because after we had left the building, D#1 said, “Daddy, I didn’t really like what I wrote in the book.” “Do you want to go back and change it? There’s still time.” “Um, yeah.” “OK, run.”
She sprinted back to the room, where the author, the library staff, and a couple of stragglers were still signing and talking. She gets the book, and the library staff wants to take a publicity photo of me and her with the book. So, she gets the book, while I sign the release, and all is well.
I must say that I had an ulterior motive for going back. As I said, we both graduated from the same small liberal arts college, and there are not that many of us alumni in the Indianapolis area, given our proximity to the school. So, I wanted to connect with him on that level. Now, I have no idea whether he loved his undergraduate years or abhorred them, it’s a bit of a crap shoot. So, I wore a white polo shirt with “Kenyon College” in teeny letters, thinking if he notices it in the signing great, if not, it wont be embarrassing for either of us. He didn’t notice when we passed him at the original signing. But, since I had his almost full attention at this point (we were last, he was tired), I decided to go for it. I brought up the topic, we shared a few laughs about a few professors, agreed that it was a beautiful place, and that was it. It was as good as I could have wanted it. Now I could stop feeling stalkerish. A brush with fame.
Both satisfied, D#1 and I walk back to the car. I ask her if she still journals. She says no. I don’t think the evening will turn her into a writer, but she and I did have fun, and my now 7th grader (how did that happen?) has seen one of the myriad ways to be creative in this world.
I don’t know if I agree that blogging is dead. There are still an awful lot of blogs out there and some get read a lot. I do think it has changed. There used to be more of a mix of long- and short-form blogs out there, but the short-form people all seem to have decamped for twitter and facebook, which is fine by me. It’s funny you bring up the issue of audience, because it came up for me today too, although for a different reason. I had an unusually large number of hits today. I still don’t know why. I can’t find any particular reason like a link somewhere. The hits weren’t all to the same page. But it made me realize that while my audience is important to me, I like that I know them. When I get a lot of hits from places I don’t know, it makes me nervous these days. There were two places that worried me today. One was someone from a magazine publisher who read a boatload of pages. The other, which scared me more, was a single hit from the place that recently offered me employment. After doing some digging, I feel like the latter was probably a coincidence. It’s a big place. Someone may have just stumbled in. But I still locked down a bunch of my posts, just in case. And I reshot a video I posted today to make sure my face was not in the picture. I don’t like having to worry about that stuff, but I also like to maintain at least the illusion of a separation between private and public life. Not so easy these days.
I didn’t say that blogging was dead, I said that the heyday of blogging was over, and it didn’t leave with a bang, but a whimper. You’re right, a lot of the casual bloggers migrated to the easier (lazier?) platforms of self expression, which is why I have less than 10 sites on my public blogroll here as opposed to the 30+ that I used to have, and some of them are only in the hope that they will start again. I wish that I could use all three (WP, FB, TW) to advance my personal brand, to put myself out into the world, but it hasn’t worked out like that. I could live without Facebook (indeed, I did)—I’ve set it to only give me status updates instead of people reposting NYT op/eds or Farmville annoyances. In other words, If all the Facebook people would move to Twitter, and use blogs for their more in-depth utterances, it would be a better world.
You give yourself 15 minutes, and you type that much? Color me impressed.
Being way more washed up than either of you on a professional level, I don’t worry too much about that part, aside from not saying all of what I think about my part-time employer.
And I agree with Harriet about the consistent audience for longer-form bloggers. I kind of like having readers I don’t know, though. My old stat counter used to have a map, and if WP has that I haven’t found it, but I used to like looking at the map and imagining why people from Sweden and Brazil would be reading my reviews.
I think part of it, for me, is still the teaching impetus–I feel like I’ll reach a person who hasn’t read a good book. Ron suggested I’m always looking for that person who has read the book and wants to argue with me. True, I said, but that hardly ever happens.
On an unrelated note, you know you’re a good parent. I think you shelter the girls a little more than you need to, but they’re your girls, so no one else gets a say. When I take my youngest to an event like that, I’m sometimes uncomfortably aware that there are adults there who think he’s much too young. I know what he’s ready for, though. He was ready for Avenue Q at the age of 12, and thoroughly enjoyed it, although he was by far the youngest person in the theater and I did get some looks.
With you and Harriet, I think it’s more my jealousy than anything else. You’ll toss of something (on FB or a blogpost) and it’ll get 15-20 comments, whereas even the Wife hasn’t commented on my blog in months. I know, I sound whiny. I seem to be pretty good in the short form (the number of FB comments that get “liked” by someone I don’t know, which is the ultimate compliment) but it’s difficult for me to get that kind of energy going over a longer post. It’s difficult for everyone.
Jeanne, there’s something in me that really wants to turn this blog into something like yours, a directed blog serving as a resource; in my case for contemporary a cappella choral art music, a topic that I know a little bit about, or at least have very strong opinions about. [Don't end a sentence with a preposition!]
Oh, I took D#1 to see Mahler at 6yo. She was the quietest thing in the theater, and the disapporoving looks were balanced by the compliments after the show about what a good father I was. (Speaking of that, have you read Michael Chabon’s “Manhood for Amateurs”? Fan-freaking-tastic.) Now her big thing is to sit in the front seat. I took her out for a drive on the highway last night, we opened the windows and did that surf thing with your hand, riding the wind. She thought it was awesome, or “awesomesauce” as she puts it.
I took AJ to see the Bodyworlds exhibit the first time around at MSI back when he was three years old. He was completely obsessed with anatomy and had an almost medical knowledge of bones and muscles and other parts. He absolutely loved it, but many people warned me not to take him because of the graphic displays and the fact that all the bodies were cadavers. But the fact is, kids don’t worry about that stuff nearly as much as grownups. My kid will be the first one to tell me when something’s too much for him. I’m with Jeanne, with your kids, no one else gets a say. Only you know them well enough. As for comments, I’ve been blogging daily for nearly 8 years. Most of the people who comment have been along for the ride for most of that time. It’s all about habit, I think.
“I’ve been blogging daily for 8 years.” Yes, I get the hint. Patience I must have, as Yoda would say. To say nothing of perseverance. There are a million defunct blogs out there, I need to give people time to find me. As evidenced by the comment below.
Well here is a comment from a stranger, who is newly reading your blog. I am a newbie to the blogging community having only started my blog a whopping 72 hours ago. I stumbled upon your blog because of the 30 in 30 music things, which I decided I would do on my blog. In pawing through your posts I found this an interesting read. Since I really know little about blogging, I have been wondering how to get readers, and what makes a good blog. Thus far I have been posting to both twitter and facebook, not really realizing that what that means in terms of privacy (until reading your post of coarse) I have not written anything at this point but I will clearly have to censor myself if I publicly posting my private thoughts. “Am I in to blogging for the pure self-expression, or do I need a significant audience to make this worthwhile?” is very interesting questions, but i would think the answer would be both, wouldn’t it? I mean isn’t blogging really us spitting out what we are thinking? And aren’t we hoping someone cares about or respects our thoughts?
My thoughts…I liked yours too…
Welcome, Kid, and thanks for your kind thoughts. If you read the conversation above with Harriet, I agree with her. Amassing readers is obviously first a matter of posting something that is interesting to someone else (even if it starts with something canned, like the music challenges). But after that, it comes down to:
(1) Consistency. Posting at least one thing a day, even if it’s a link to an article with “Hmm.” Obviously that can be overdone. Even if your blog is mostly on one topic, you’ll need time to find a voice, and to give your readers time to hear it.
(2) Commenting. Both engaging with commenters on your own blog, and reaching out with non-trolling comments on others blogs.
(3) Community. Making a circle of like-minded (in the broadest sense) people that read each other. Not to promote groupthink, but just the opposite: to keep you on your toes, to keep the writing and thinking blades sharp.
Wow, I just pulled that 3 C’s out of the air. Anyway, in terms of promotion of the blog, I intentionally keep my blog away from Twitter and Facebook, since they are linked to my real name. Not that I post scandalous stuff here, but there are things I write that I don’t want to give my 12-year-old second cousin immediate access to. From a literary point of view, I’d like to cultivate a persona that is maybe slightly different from the one I assume elsewhere. That, and the whole potential employer thing.
So, you have a good start (though your font size makes it a bit difficult for these old eyes to read!) and I will keep reading.
I never thought of it that way, well put!