Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Slave to the Blog

It occurred to me today that I am in fact a slave to the blog as surely as I have been a slave to my career in the past.



After a half a week of not posting a small vein starts twitching in my neck. The tiny twitch becomes a thump, thump, thump in Starbucks and I am like the fellow in the Edgar Alan Poe novel for whom the beating of the heart of the old man he has murdered becomes so pronounced he has to give himself up.

There I am, out in public, ripping up the floorboards, metaphorically speaking and revealing the corpse to all who care to see it in all it's grisly details - ladies and gentlemen I have neglected by blog. Now lock me up.

Well to be fair I have been busy. I have been winding my way around in small circles of insignificance - wondering why I have taken on assignments that involve asking dumb questions to random people in steamy subdivisions in the middle of the day, and vaguely thinking I have spent half of my life asking futile questions of people who don't care.

But the futility has taken over my life as my old life has slipped back for a couple of days - nothing for it but to call all the people on the list and thus to fuel the futility. Mornings slip by and before I know it I am deftly crafting the futility into the wee small hours.

I start to see why I have people I follow who went on a "blogging break" and never came back. I picture them now in dark caves on a windswept island, muttering about the weather and the messy sea gulls and the perils of falling coconuts - anything as long as they never have to talk about their now defunct blogs.




But some of us stick with it for sure. We are dutiful plodders who put one step in front of another as we head to an indistinct and hilly horizon.

Which is a cue to wimp out and post some pictures of the mountains, but definitely not to go on a blogging break that is a one way ticket to oblivion.

18 comments:

  1. Hhahaha blogging oblivion! Meh, I don't post nearly as much as I was, but life sometimes takes over, priorities change - but mostly I didn't like the feeling of guilt when I didn't post. That began to feel weird. I mean, guilty for goodness sake! That seemed a bit out of kilter so I decided to back off and be IN CONTROL damnit.
    cheers
    Sue

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    1. I know Sue - but the guilt will bite you in the end, lol

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  2. I go on blogging time outs. But my ever faithful are there to offer me a comment and a wave when I do blog. I am a plodder, but not a dutiful one. :-)

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    1. yep we most certainly are Nubian - but some folks just vanish

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  3. With reader alerts it's easy to keep up when someone posts, so even if you do bugger off, when you come back we all know about it.

    Blogging should be a pleasure not a duty. No one's paying you and we have no expectations. If you don't want to write a post, well, just don't. :)

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    1. yes but it's not always as easy at that Sarah - what if the stats flatline...aarrghhh :)

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  4. I envy your anxiety; it makes you write brilliant posts! I feel guilty if I don't write anything in a month, like now, but laziness always wins in summer, so the guilt continues.

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    1. you are so kind Starla - well yours are worth waiting for..with u re laziness

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  5. I love this post. I feel guilty if I don't post every day.

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    1. Thanks Scots Lass - I went through a period of that - but now if I don't post twice a week.

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  6. I lost my muse in 2009 and I thought I'd never return to blogging but I did and am glad. :) Take a break but don't rule out coming back. If it stops being fun, then it's time to quit.

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    1. Well I'm glad you got it back. Nah can't see myself taking a break for any period of time. It's in my genes.

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  7. I get itchy when I haven't blogged for a while too. I have taken a lot of breaks over the years, but I've always returned (at least so far). I have thought about stopping altogether and may still do that some time, but so far I seem to be a slave too.

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    1. Glad to hear - well don;t for good Daisy - I'm sure you won't

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  8. Do NOT go on a blogging break into oblivion, David. I'd be very put out. Let's keep plodding on! :-)
    Some Dark Romantic

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    1. Thx Mina not much danger of that as I obviously like the sound of my written voice too much :)

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  9. I'm a little crazy about sticking to my blogging schedule, but I have thought about taking a week or two off. But then I'm scared I'll never come back so I keep going on. If I really need a break I can always write stuff in advance and schedule it to post later.

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On Blog PTSD

Now then. What the heck. It seems I had forgotten about my blog completely rather than just neglecting it this time. To return after so long...