I started blogging with for two purposes. To get my writing out there. And to connect with other people (both of similar interests (and maybe also others)). But both things kinda feel like a failure now.
So I ask myself the quetions if I should stop blogging?
I feel like the connection with people didn’t work. I’ve commented. (though finding a blog post where you’ve actually anything to say means that you might have to read many others first so it can be really time consuming. I read dozens of posts, gave likes to a handful, and commented on maybe two. That one day in my blogging career.)
So many comments doesn’t get a response. And the few that do are often “thank you for responding” and similar things that a (ro)bot could have said. I think “what exactly was it that you liked?” Pleasantries and appearance have overtaken actual real interaction. But yes there are still a some interactions that feels real. Some great people who … But too much of iy comes off as talking to the (proverbial) hand.
So I’m not sure exactly where this interaction or conversation is to take place. On my blog, or on others? I’ve gotten a few comments on my blog: “I like this!”, “Love this”, “Amazing”. It’s really hard to get/have much of a conversation from that.
I think there’s also a conflict between personal interaction on one hand, and technical/informational and “professional” interaction on the other. Technical posts, informational posts, etc, are often less personal. Technical conversations doesn’t really do much to make me feel connected with other people.
Most blog conversations are too much like this: A: says something. B: says something. BOOM. Conversation over.
In real life this woould be considered extremely antissocial. My whole blogging experience have felt so much like talking in an echo chamber. Occasionally I might hear a faint voice in the distance. But it turns out it was only an automated response.
I’ve posted 1 blog post on average per day for 24 days. Yet visitors have dropped off to almost nothing.
They say it takes 30 days to create a habit or to do something long-term. So I guess in 1 week I’ll know for sure.
Lyrical Impressions 
I guess we can’t have expectations. It’s like shopping, what you get is not exactly what’s on the label or what the sales person led you to expect. When it comes to the internet and technology, it is particularly so. Moving pictures and text, what we wrote and posted, up on a glowing screen – humanity is reduced to our visual sense and cognitive notion.
I think keep blogging, because there are real people there with the same experiences – and intelligence, sensitivity and frustration. Remember there’s a real human being who you are inside of, looking and reaching out.
Don’t worry about the numbers. More people must see what you wrote on the “Reader” without coming up on your stats. Being “popular” has to come about from doing your own thing. My experience has been to find just a few people along the way, who know something about you, and it might be from a distance – you’re right, there’s a lot of reading. I’ve heard of not opening e mail till after you’ve started your work for that day. There’s so much coming in with the net, isn’t there. And not much depth to the contact.
I like this post though. It is close to your own heart, despairing of the medium of its expression as it may.
(Wow). Thank you. I was starting to doubt I’d even get any response, let alone so soon. This did renew my sense that it might just be worth it.
I think you’re right. This post was written as much as an expression of how I felt, as just asking the question.
Yes, it’s much more about quality than quantity. Reaching (and connecting with) the right people (the ones that matters).
The numbers did look rather bad, but I guess some people are in fact reading from the reader as well.
Well, first off ask yourself why you began in the first place for real. Next from your stats it looks as though you had people interested and then they stopped being interested so I would look to your content. What are you talking about. I don’t know your posts, but You need to begin with what ‘you’ are writing. Is it inmteresting? If not, what can you do to make it more so? I write poetry, but I also re-post other poet’s poems I feel are good enough as well as feature a poet of the week for three days as well as twice a week post a entry from my writing journal, as well as posting a great deal of my own poetry. I happen to write a lot so I always have material. I follow about 350 people but only a handful I picked send me instant posts or daily digest posts. The rest I go to the reader and scan the blogs I follow. Then I go to the reader again and go to the poetry board and go through as many poems by other poets that I can. Fort a long time in place of the journal I had a quote of the day and then followed that with a commentary on the quote. But I found that really wasn’t wowing anyone on a regular basis. With my journal I talk about my writing, ideas, issues, problems, how tos of what I do. You have to be flexible. I started 2 years ago and by the third month I think I had 12-15 followers. I have a great deal more now but you have to be persistent. Don’t ask anyone else if you should continue. Ask yourself if you want to continue. If your writing is poor fix it. Work at it. Or just give up like a lot of people do because it’s in the end not important enough for them. Ask yourself how important is it to me? >KB
Yes, the question isn’t so much whether I whould be writing as whether I should be blogging. There’s a lot of other stuff to blogging than just writing. About writing: I guess I’ve always been writing, and probably always will. But in the past it has mostly gone to the backburner. Or the collected dust in the (proverbial) box in the attic.
The whole social thing, connecting with others, etc, is probably at least half of blogging. Maybe I might need to work more on that.
I’m not really looking for a lot of followers or readers. Only the ones that matter.
The journal thing seems like an interesting idea. There are some other good thoughts there as well. Thank you.
Well, I’m not very social to begin with, but you have to make some concessions for politeness if you blog. You don’t need to at it all the time. Just write and you will meet people. But you do need to be somewhat involved if you want feedback on your writing. Just for a month write and make an occassional foray into seeing what other people are doing. Don’t worry about comments or having conversations and getting to know people. Trust me you really don’t want a lot of that either. I have made some friends on here but it only goes so far and I like that. That’s why I say you have to decide on priorities. I’m a good writer–I work at it but don’t angst over it. As a poet I want people to read and enjoy what I write for its own sake.. You need to give it more time-3 months. You don’t need to do it everyday but make a schedule and let your readers know what to expect. Write MTW but tell them that so the ones who like what you write will be looking for you. Try it see what happens. I don’t work, not married few outside obligations except my three dogs so I write all the time. But that’s because I have the time. ?Do what works best for you. Yes there weill be times when you don’t want to do it but do it anyway. Hell I took 6 weeks off of posting and only reblogged people and me reader stats went down but came back even stronger because my writing was stronger for having taken the time off. Best>KB
I am struggling with the exact same question right now myself. It is very discouraging to put your heart and soul into something and work really hard on it and then get almost no response. The thing that given me some solace is this section from T.S. Eliot’s essay “The social Function of Poetry”: “…It matters little whether a poet had a large audience in his own time. What matters is that there should always be at least a small audience for him…I would even press my first point and say that if a poet gets a large audience very quickly, that is a rather suspicious circumstance: for it leads us to fear that he is not really doing anything new, that he is only giving people what they are already used to, and therefore what they have already had from the poets of the previous generation. But that a poet should have the right, small audience in his own time is important. There should always be a small vanguard of people, appreciative of poetry, who are independent and somewhat in advance of their time or ready to assimilate novelty more quickly…” I hope it gives you some solace also. I feel like Eliot can be interpreted broadly with relevance to the entire blogosphere. Anyway I hope you keep blogging because somewhere out there is someone who will find you someday and you will be exactly what they were looking for.
Wow. I’m surprised at all the responses. It seems like a lot of people are (or have been) going through something very similar.
I guess my own experience (with reading dozens of posts but only responding to a handful) might be at least part of the answer.
Coming up with something interesting to say can often be pretty darn hard.
Please don’t take this the wrong way but unfortunately, that is how it is when we first begin. Visitors take awhile to stick and it is harder to find people who even respond to comments. They are there, though, so stick with it and it will get better.
At this point, though, I would either blog more and/or go look, follow, like, and comment on others pages…a good portion will come back to your blog.
Please do not quit!
Thank you. I guess 1 month a bit short to really reach out to other people. It was the seemingly low stats (and some other things) that sparked this whole thing. Both the post itself and also the sense that maybe it’s not working. But I guess I need to try a bit more to interacting with other people. Nothing is built over night. Whether that’s just a single friendship or an entire audience.
But yes I do want to reach out and connect with other people. At the same time, it’s true that much attention is something I can find a bit scary. The feeling that it might just be too much for me to handle. I guess that internal voice might be one of the things that holds me back sometimes. I have (just like many other people) some scars to deal with and some issues to resolve.
But I think I’ll try to stick around a bit longer. At the very least a few more months. If not even longer. It was really great to hear from you.
My pleasure! Interacting with other bloggers (in particular) and especially with wordpress is a simple (but time consuming) way to drive traffic to your blog.
I consider it fun and awesome but that might take time. I totally agree with your comment about the inner voice but I also know that you can do it.
If you feel a bit overwhelmed, I recommend blogging less (but still writing/ typing them out) and scheduling days or times where you just go out and read, comment, and follow other people.
Of course, it is your choice but just a friendly suggestion as doing that very thing has led me to you!
It’s awesome that you have blogged so honestly about this and I definitely appreciate it :D.
Keep in touch,
Felicia
Just keep going
>”My pleasure! Interacting with other bloggers (in particular) and especially with wordpress is a simple (but time consuming) way to drive traffic to your blog.”
The problem for me, is that interacting with other bloggers haven’t (yet) lead to anything (longer) lasting. Just a bunch of short-term, back-and-forth exchanges that fizzles out and and ends in nothing. No lasting connections. No long-term engagements, interactions or connections.
Maybe I’m not really looking for traffic for my blog—-PER SE.
Yes: some traffic might be needed, to actually reach other people, and for moving forward on a road, or getting to some place that is not just the same thing, all over again.
And yes: I do want to reach other people. And yes: I also want at least some people to read things I have wrote. (Maybe few, or maybe many, but at least some (or a lot—at least more than none).
So I’m not really *just* looking for more traffic, in and of itself. Yet as you’re right to point out, the roadworks and flow of people can’t really be avoided. In a social media, traffic (the people and cars) also means—and unavoidably IS—other living breathing people. Other human being. Other heart-and-spirit, flesh-and-blood, living&bleeding people, just like myself.
John, you lovable irish rascal. I’ve taken your nice, and encouraging comments into consideration. I will at least make another *kind* of attempt. A harder attempt. Whether it later leads into anything long-term… that I can’t really say (at least not at this very minute and day).
There has barely been I day when I haven’t been writing. And yet… I’ve shown almost nothing more of it to any other people. Writing for the drawer in my desk? Or for the soul and the spirit of some other kind of realm? Bleeding words, for that un-told, and almost always so unlived, super-reality and existence? Or writing, still, for the future? Or just for the enjoyment and meaning of it itself? That I can’t really say.
But still I kept on writing, and bleeding and crying and laughing in words. In poetic deeds and needs, in gardens of prose and of poetry, with all of what is and might be.