My friend responded that she hardly ever heard those sentiments. The conversation moved on, but what I think she meant was that so many people don’t like to blog. They complain about blogging. They wonder if they can get away without blogging. Blogging is a duty, another item on the to-do list.
I don’t think it’s worth it. I read a lot of blogs, and I can tell which bloggers love it. It shines through in their posts. I begin to feel like I know them, even though I’ve never met most of them. They are often so passionate about blogging that they can’t help talking about it every so often, just like I’m doing right now. Their blogs ring with passion, with thought, and with genuine interest in their readers. These are the blogs I miss when I’m away from the internet.
I question whether that sort of commitment can be faked. I’ve been hearing a lot in the past year about the craving we as a society have right now for authenticity, to the point that it has become something of a buzz word among certain circles. But jargon or no, I think it’s relevant to the conversation. We can tell when someone cares deeply about what they’re saying or doing, and their authenticity draws us in.
We can talk about how much we love blogging all we want, but it is our actions that show whether we’re being genuine. Do we post regularly or do we tend to find excuses to avoid it? Do we write about subjects that we obviously care deeply about? Do we engage in the comment section with thoughtful discussion? Do we approach the writing of a blog post as though it is one of the most important things we could be doing right now?
For those who don’t enjoy blogging, there are plenty of other ways to engage with others. Happily we live in a time rife with choices: Twitter, Facebook (and Facebook pages), Google+, podcasts, Goodreads, etc. If there’s one of these platforms that we connect with better than the others, that ease will reflect itself in our interactions.
I hate the thought of the dutiful yet miserable blogger. Of course, even the most passionate blogger will have his off days or her moments when the words just don’t flow. Sometimes I’d prefer to mess around on the internet instead of writing the next essay, or ideas fail me and I don’t know what to write about. But ultimately I’m working out of a sense of love, not duty. I remember how much blogging gives to me and I push through the laziness and the lack of inspiration.
I think we find authenticity when we do what we love.
The Practical Free Spirit 
Great post…
Going to feature it on my blog tomorrow 🙂
Just went over to check it out! Thank you.
I love my blog, and I hope it shows! This is a great post, Amy, and so true. You really can tell when someone’s just slogging through a post. I know the conventional wisdom is to try to blog every day, but I really think that can hurt a blogger if the posts are substandard. I’d rather have a blogger skip a day here and there than read forced posts–and of course, too many forced posts makes readers leave forever.
I think you’re right, Shelby. Readers will forgive an off day or two, but I suspect that they’ll eventually stop reading, at least for awhile. I know I stop reading some blogs, although I’m less likely to completely stop once I’ve added them to my RSS feed.
Also, yes, your blog love definitely shows! Although maybe that’s just my enthusiasm for anything Disneyland talking. 🙂
[…] Amy Sundberg has a blog called The Practical Free Spirit and recently wrote the post, Social Media: Do What You Love (or at least like). […]
[…] Link to the rest at The Practical Free Spirit […]
An excellent post and so very true!
I’ve already decided that, when I publish, I will concentrate my attention on the aspects of social networking that I enjoy (thankfully I enjoy most of them).
I keep seeing people on Twitter and Google+ who never post anything with any personality, or even anything useful or interesting. They just have a stream of posts saying “Buy my book!!!” mixed with random inspirational quotes.
In fact, I’ve seen at least a dozen people doing this, not just to advertise books but also businesses, so I half wonder if it’s an automated spam service that people sign up for.
It’s a classic sign of people doing something they don’t really want to do and you’re quite right, it shows!
It’s so easy to get so caught up in the flood of so many social media platforms, isn’t it? I think it’s good to give different platforms a chance to learn how they really work, but I doubt that the highly aggressive “sell sell sell” strategy is effective. At least, I know it doesn’t work on me!
I find blogging to be a chore. I keep hearing over and over (and keep feeling it, too) that you can’t be a successful author without blogging. I may stand as testimony to that!I do like Twitter, though. I guess it’s less pressure or something. I have it linked to my website so the page isn’t utterly static and that may help a little.
I think the subtext of your post is that being an unwilling, lousy blogger is worse than not blogging.
Yes, that was the subtext I was going for. Maybe not so much the lousy part as the unwilling part. I don’t believe it’s true that you can’t be a successful author without blogging, as I know many successful authors who don’t blog at all. Paolo Bacigalupi comes to mind, and last year he won the Prinze, the Hugo, and the Nebula.
I think it’s great that you like Twitter! I bet that’s where you really shine.
[…] had a thoughtful post about blogging and other social media for writers. She wrote I hate the thought of the dutiful yet […]
I don’t mind blogging when some thing actually happens, or when I have something to say.
I’m thinking about getting a camera–blogs with pictures are jusy cool…
I must say, though, I don’t “get” Twitter…
I actually find blogging to be an interesting exercise to *find* things to say. Not as in making stuff up that I don’t actually care about, but being able to uncover all the thoughts I have but don’t even necessarily realize are going on.
Twitter was the hardest for me to get, too. I’ve had to compromise in order to find a way to use it that I enjoy.
I was blogging years before I seriously thought about writing a novel, much less publishing. Now that blogging is part of social networking, too many people are doing it because they feel obligated. I burn out every now and then, and have to take some time out, but blogging is in my blood. Frankly, if self-promotion was my reason for blogging, I’d have given it up a long time ago. My view of the world is off-center and my humor, what there is of it, is too dry for most readers. I’ve never had a lot of followers, but I’ve had some fantastic conversations with people who decide to stick around.
Ooh, dry humor? Going to check it out RIGHT NOW. 🙂
And yes, I agree that one of the great parts of blogging is the sense of community that begins to develop.
I was thinking of how to optimize my blog for traffic (and hence promotion), and I realized that I want to write what I want to write. Sometimes what I write inevitably won’t be of great interest to a large number of people, but being able to share with those who appreciate it makes it all worthwhile.
Amen to that, Miss Amy. Blogging is clearly something you excel at. Me, I just complain about Star Trek and complain about politicos when they do something particularly egregious.
As a self-publisher, I hear ‘you have to maintain your presence’ all the time (usually from people not remotely connected with writing or publishing.) But, frankly, if I forced myself to blog something once a week, it’d be contrived, stale, and boring. I’d rather put out a new book every four months or so and stick to bashing on Star Trek: Voyager. I mean, ‘write what you know’ is one of our tenets, right?
I think there is no One Right Way to use social media as a writer. The trick is to find what works for you, and it sounds like you’ve found the strategy that does the trick for you. Producing more material sounds fabulous to me!
Do what we love. 🙂 That’s how life should be at all the time. That’s my ideal love. Unfortunately, there are times when we do things because we’re obligation to do so. Even then we should find a way to love it (not the entire thing but focus on the aspect that we love about it).
It’s true that obligation often rears its ugly head. Then the question becomes, am I truly obliged to do this? Sometimes the answer is yes, in which case I think your strategy is perfect (to find something to appreciate in it, even if we can’t appreciate everything). Sometimes the answer is that we can find a different strategy or approach that works equally well…or we might be willing to take a different approach that isn’t quite as effective but saves our sanity. 🙂
[…] come back to blogging because of a post from my friend, Amy Sundberg, who said about blogging, “Do what you love (or at least like).” What a concept! And yet I realized I’d let myself be limited by what I’ve heard […]
You’ve inspired me. I’m starting up my blog again, starting on this post:
http://westofwonderland.com/?p=321
Which gives credit where credit’s due – to your inspiration. What a simple idea, to do what I might actually want to do with my blog, rather than what I maybe have felt I should do with it (or, in my case, not update my blog as a passive-aggressive way of rebelling against the ‘common knowledge’ of what a blog ‘should be’).
Hooray and congrats! Can’t wait to see what you write. 🙂
[…] talked about Facebook, I’ve talked about Google+, and I’ve mentioned blogging more than a few times. But what about Twitter, the social media platform that literally causes marketing […]
[…] formulate a strategy that works for you. Otherwise, say hello to burn-out. That’s why I recommend using social media in a way that you enjoy, or at least in a way not completely odious to you. If you’re forcing yourself to do something […]
[…] Amy Sundberg has a blog called The Practical Free Spirit and recently wrote the post, Social Media: Do What You Love (or at least like). […]