It’s About Time!

As a blogger most folks would agree I’ve been pretty pathetic about my writing efforts over the past several months.   No excuses.   Well, I could give you a laundry list of reasons I haven’t been putting pixels on the computer screen…but it really serves no constructive purpose, now does it?

An outdoors writer associate of mine has a blog and perhaps he is most honest with his blog readers.   He calls his blog the “Ocassional” blog.   I guess the connotation there is don’t expect much, I’ll write something when I damn well please.   Honest…indeed.   Yet, not likely to send those search engines spinning with newfound content that they all like to feed on.

Honestly, I’ve done a bit of soul searching about this whole process of blogging.   What I’ve discovered is the older I get the less I care to write about life experiences as I’d rather just sit and cherish them.   At least, that’s the way it is for me.   There was a time when I would experience something new and I couldn’t wait to share the experience.   I’m sad to report that sensation has somewhat faded.    Oh, don’t get me wrong…I’ve not given up on blogging.   Rather, I would like to think I have just matured during the process.

Good or bad…there’s one person and only one person who controls the content of this blog. Guess who?

When I began blogging almost ten years ago (anniversary in just a few weeks) I did it for me.   I know that sounds rather self-centered, but realize back ten years ago very few people read blogs.   Hell, for that matter most Internet users lacked any understanding about what blogs could potentially be.   Back in those days you jotted in a blog much like you would log an entry into a personal diary kept near your nightstand.   Big difference, this diary entry was available to the public AND if you slighted someone in any negative fashion you could be held legally liable.   In a diary…well, they never even knew about it.

Oh, I’m not going to get into how over the past decade blogging has evolved into the powerful medium it has become to express feelings.   I’ll save that for someone else to do.

However, I do want to express how I think blogging, or more specifically many bloggers, could be well served to remember why they got started.   In the beginning it was people who just had something to say.   It was writers who had a burr under their saddle, so to speak, and needed a soapbox platform to release some pent up feelings on a particular matter.   It was bloggers who wrote from the heart, and not from the pocketbook.

You see, I think blogging for many has become too commercial.   Too predictable.   Too much like a big promotional message…whether the slant is to perform self-promotion or that for a company/product.   I may have mentioned it before but I’ve passed on opportunities to blog for big name outlets because I did not want my words or thoughts to be tainted by sponsor bottom lines, future advertising opportunities, or the like.   In fact, when you see my “byline” it’s because I have something to say.   Not because my name and reputation is being used as a mouthpiece.

Oh, sure, if blogging is your livelihood and there is a financial interest at stake, it takes on a whole new purpose.   In contrast, when you go for two months without as much as uttering a single word on your blog.   Well, that pretty much proves you don’t answer to anyone…at least from the sponsor side of things.

As we inch closer to fall and the fall season so many of us adore, I’d like to think you will see more posts here detailing my rambling thoughts on this outdoors matter or that.   On the other hand, if I fail to check in on a weekly or even monthly basis I hope you’ll understand.   I write when the urge to do so presents itself.   In other words, I write when I have something to say, not when there’s something another person wants me to tell you.   Understand the difference in the various blogs you read.