My first post in a week. What’s up with that? Have I run out of things to say? Am I bored with myself? Am I stressed and busier than usual?
No, nah, and nope.
I simply needed a break. We’ll see how long the break lasts; for all I know, I’ll kick back into gear this week…However, I’m predicting that I won’t. Mostly because these two adorable boys, my nephews, Trevor and Andrew (Christmas 2007), arrive today for their annual summer visit. I can count on getting nothing done while they’re here, which is as it should be.
Meanwhile, I wonder if anyone out there can relate to this: This blogging thing, it’s meant to be fun, right? For now, for me, it’s a hobby. But, since I’m me, and I apparently like flogging myself, I crack that whip if I don’t blog two-three times a week, if I don’t vary my posts between fluff and more serious stuff, if I don’t visit other blogs to keep up with what’s going on, if I don’t…etcetera etcetera etcetera.
In other words, I’ve allowed blogging to become another responsibility, another task on the to-do list, another endeavor that could lead to failure (whatever that means) if I don’t do it just right — and God forbid my stats plummet! Oh no! Am I losing readership? Are my fellow bloggers bored with me? Do people still like me? Will I get fired?
Ugh. Puh-leeze. Even I have to remind myself that the blogosphere isn’t reality. It’s barely reality-based. It’s all about the personas we choose to show others…I wouldn’t say anyone who only knows me through my blog actually knows me, just as I don’t actually know any of my blogger pals. (This could be a whole ‘nother post and chat…)
Enough of that. Extending the break another week is obviously a good idea. I have reality to see to, which this afternoon includes dog-washing because the boys are eager to meet Luna and best paw forward, right?
I have a writer-friend who always, every day, gives herself permission to quit writing. Somehow, it liberates her to continue writing. So, I hereby allow myself not to blog.
(That said, check back next week, ‘kay?)
0 comments on “On Taking Breaks From Blogging”
Provocative, this. I find much reality in the blogosphere; and I find many who seem to be reality-based. As I get to know them outside the ether, I find they are as real as they showed themselves to be. So there are real people here.
I think you had to make your loyal and loving readers unreal so that you could feel better about your blog break.
So there! ;o)
And have fun on your break, by the way!
not blogging is falling asleep. That’s not bad. We all need some rest and we all receive it by blogging at welcoming one other.
Personally I was freed from my worries such way and thus new blog was started. It’s the http://dayfly.wordpress.com/
I’ve always admired how well thought out and interesting your posts are. I’ve often wished I could be as eloquent and as prolific. I say enjoy your break, however long it is, and we’ll all still be here to welcome you back.
Eve, ah…Your comment gets me thinking further about the reality of the blogosphere. For example, based on what I wrote, some readers might think I’m a cynical person (maybe even a bee-yatch); others mights think I’m simply in a crabby mood today. It’s all interpretation, which isn’t reality, not matter how hard we, the writers, try to communicate true to ourselves (i.e. “reality-based,” as you say) — I know I do, but I suspect there’s as many interpretations of who I am out there as there are readers…This is kind of what I was getting at it…And, am I a cynical person or am I in a cynical mood today? Well…who knows? 🙂
Tomas, thanks for dropping in! I’ll check out your blog soon.
DeAnna, thanks for the compliment, especially because you’ve got a novel coming out, which makes you the more eloquent to my mind!
Current events (Russian tanks transform peaceful towns in a state of ruins at a moment we rejoice over the sportsman’s achievements) and talk about peace) stress actuality of your question, put everything into the new light – life test our belief and the question, what for do we blog? becomes loud and threatening. What for are all my artworks? What for I am keeping so many blogs? Isn’t that just self-exuse for doing nothing?
Current events helped me to sense your post deeper than prior.
Thank you for the thought provoking post.
http://trustlight.blogspot.com/
http://www.trans4mind.com/karkalas/
Don’t beat yourself up about posting! It is meant to be fun, I think. At least that’s how I try to treat it. Fun, satisfying, cathartic. But the last thing I want it to be is pressure, since there’s so much pressure coming from everywhere else.
So I take short breaks every now and then. Just look how long it took me to comment on your taking-a-break post! But then I come back and, turns out, I have a ton to say. So I guess I blog in bursts.
Looking forward to _your_ next burst!
(Also, I think I am more real on my blog than I am in real life, say, at work. The people who know me from my blog, some of whom I’ve met, seem to know the real me. Everyone else, not so much.)
Lisa, eh, I don’t know who you are, but I think you’re being who you are at the moment you write… so I have to keep reading regularly scheduled episodes. Ha ha!
I really like Nova’s comment about being more real on her blog than in real life. I wonder how many people would agree that it’s the same for them? Blogs are sometimes good parking places for what we don’t express elsewhere.
But that’s getting off the topic. I like your blog so you have to come back even if you do take a break. I mean that in the most selfish way.
L,
Cynical, no! Overload, maybe, yes/no?
I have just returned from a week of “mental rejuvenation” and I discovered upon returning that maybe it should have been two weeks. Between “real everyday in the life of Annie O.”, writing and revising the unpublished works of Annie O., blogging an activity I look at as my down time. I visit my “regulars” either at home on PC or away on Laptop. Some are on the top of the list and some on the bottom, but I visit all. And, even if I do not comment on each post, I am enjoying the entry. Of course you know where you are on my site…
So, you’re not crabby, your human, go take that break and enjoy it.
Annie O.