Pondering the world

I have another blog!

As if I didn't have enough to do...

I'm now keeping another blog for the B&B called View from the Innside.  It will have posts about the Bottger Mansion, Albuquerque, festivals and fairs, events, and my somewhat occasional series on the old buildings and businesses around Old Town.  I hope people will find it and it will answer the question, "why would I go to Albuquerque?"  I'm not posting to that one every day, but I'm trying to post at least once a week. 

I must confess that I borrowed a bunch of posts from my regular blog, since there were so many about interesting stuff in Old Town.  I was kind of selective--for instance, I didn't add the post about the local "cowboy" who tried to get his horse to go up the stairs to the second floor of Plaza Don Luis...  that was classic.

I also now have a personal Facebook page as a prelude to having a Facebook page for the Bottger Mansion.

I've always been kind of a technology resistor, although it may not appear that way to a lot of people.  Mostly it's because Steve has always been an "early adopter" and I've been dragged along.  So while I feel like I'm far behind as far as blogging and Facebook and all that, there are still a lot of people and other innkeepers who say, "what's blogging?  Why would I do that?"  Why, indeed.

However, I draw the line at Twitter.  I don't want texting on my phone, ever.  If someone ever told me I had to do that?  Just shoot me now.

blogging milestone: post number 500

I almost missed it.  I have a bunch of posts cued up in draft so I always have something to publish. 

I've never been good at keeping a journal, so I started blogging.  One post every day.  500 posts seems like a lot.  One post every day.  It adds up.

blissfully ignorant

I have been fairly content for most of the month of July.  Why is that, you ask?  Because I stopped checking the stats daily and stopped caring about comments.

Early in the month there were some interesting comments about stats and comments, posts about comments designed to get more readers and comments, and then a fairly caustic experience with a comment.

What the blazes is going on?  Is this a popularity contest?  Do people only write in order to get more readership?  Do they think what they write doesn't matter if hundreds of others aren't reading it and commenting on it?  The more I read, the more it appeared to be that way.  If a blogger didn't think "enough" (whatever that number might be) people were reading her blog, she would moan and groan about it.  If he didn't get comments, he was begging for people to leave them.  Another got zinged by a commenter because she didn't respond to a comment. 

Get help, people.

And I say that because for a short time I got caught up in it.  I'll admit that it's exciting to check your stats every day and say, "Look!  Eight people read my blog today!  That's twice as many as last month!  Woo-hoo!"  And a comment means someone cares enough to read your stuff and say something about it.

But then I asked myself why I was writing.  And then I had to ask myself why I cared if anyone read it and why I cared if anyone commented. 

Here are the answers: 

Why do I write?   Because taking the time to write forces me to think about what it was I saw or read or heard that I found interesting.  It makes me play with the language and distill it into coherent thoughts or concise words.  One positive additional benefit is that my family can read my blog and feel like they know what's going on in my life.

Why do I care if anyone reads it?  That is a bit harder question and the ego took a bit of a beating, but the answer is that, except for my family and a few others, I don't.

Why do I care if anyone comments? The nice thing about comments is that it feels like a conversation, albeit a very short one, and sometimes it's rather lopsided.  It seems to me that quality conversations start on the high end of the scale with face-to-face ones and degenerate from there from telephone chats to email exchanges, ending at the low end of the spectrum with blog comments.  They only last just so long, and then everyone moves on.  The good news is that you can get comments from lots of people on the same topic of conversation or train of thought.  The bad news is you also get trolls, spammers and egoists. 

So I decided to do a couple of things and see if I was any happier.  I stopped checking stats and said I'd let myself look at that in the middle of the month and the end of the month.  I stopped commenting on other blogs unless I thought I had something either supportive, insightful or perhaps amusing to say.  If I want to be a smart-aleck, I can keep it to myself.  For a few days I actually closed comments, but then I realized I was shutting out someone who was just starting to leave me comments and seems like a nice person.  Thanks, LouCeeL.

And yes, I have been happier and more content.  I don't know how many people are reading every day, and I'm okay with that.  I decided the only person who needed to be happy with what I write is me.

As Grandad says, "if you don't like what I write, you can bloody well go somewhere else."

 

maybe now I can become a writer

I was astounded the other day to see that I had 162 posts on my blog.  That means essentially I have 162 short stories, essays, journal entries--call them what you will.  Somehow by writing a blog entry practically every day, I have finally become a writer.

Everything I've ever read or been taught about writers is that the good ones write religiously every day.  Maybe it's the first thing they do in the morning.  Anyway, good writers do this without fail.

However, I fail.  I don't write well longhand any more because my hands cramp up.  I can type until the cows come home, but don't ask me to write much more in longhand than an address on an envelope or jot down a phone number.  I also have a tendency to jump out of bed in the morning and get started on my day.  Patience is no longer my strong suit. I’m already thinking about the two dozen things I need to get done before 8:00 a.m., so getting up and writing in a journal just isn’t going to happen.

But here I sit with 162 posts and counting. I would never have thought I would have this many entries in one year.  Maybe it’s because I focus on one thought or event at a time instead of looking at the big picture.  Sometimes it’s good not to see the forest.

How do you eat an elephant?  One piece at a time.

How do you become a writer?  One entry at a time.