Life Cycle of Blogging

I wonder if there is a life-cycle to blogging. In the beginning there's excitement because people (mostly family and friends) are reading your compositions. Then there's intrigue because total strangers and now reading your platitudes. Soon you're cruising the blog-world, leaving comments and those bloggers visit your blog. We begin a 21st century relationship - never meeting, never talking face-to-face, but communicating.

Sometimes your blog gets listed on other's blogrolls. That's exciting. It begins to feel like a popularity contest - the blogs you read, you compare how many commentors are on theirs to yours. Some depression then sets in, so you think, "I'll become controversial," or "I'll join these carnivals and get more total strangers reading about homeschooling or join give-aways."

You get a routine and begin your day viewing your list of bloggers, commenting when something hits you, still in the back of your mind, wondering why they get so many comments and I (even when trying to be controversial) stay below ten.

Then something tragic happens like your power cord goes kaput and you have to order one and it's a week and a half before you can get back on your computer. During that week you're not blogging, reading or writing. The first two days are agony. You pace the halls wondering when your husband will be home with his laptop so you can catch up on what others have written, but because it's his laptop you don't have time to write for your own blog (except you can post something you've had in your draft-file for the past two months!). Then three or four days past and the anxiety level is subdued. Husband brings his laptop home and, hmmm, you're busy with the kids (who you've neglected for 1 1/2 years because of blogging) or you finally have time to color out the gray roots on my head, vacuum under the bed or clean the floor boards.

Then day 10 comes around and guess what's in the mail -- your power cord. Immediately you plug it in to ensure it works with your laptop. Ahh, a green light.

Anxiously you begin to read the blogs on your blog-tab. Of course your blog is listed among them but you pass over because you haven't posted so you know there are no new comments. Other bloggers, your friends, have written five or six times. That's a lot of reading. So you spend the next few mornings catching up on their lives. Occasionally you click on yours just to view the site meter. Hmm, visits are down, probably because I'm not writing, duh!

So you sit down to compose. Okay, what's on your mind.... And then it hits you..."I'm boring"..."I have nothing to tell, question or ask." You ask, "Why do I do this? Am I wasting my time, other's time?" You begin to question whether to continue, you question your purpose.

That is where I am today (but hey, I got a blog out of it!). I know a book blog is due today (Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen) but I have nothing in me to give, except this blog about blogging.

Seriously, the book blogging is going to be late this month (by a couple days, look on the 28th).