Wired News: Bloggers Suffer Burnout is a story that StÈfan Sinclair pointed me to about how blogging can become drugery. The story describes the experience of blogs that took off to the point where authors felt the habit was too demanding.
For readers of this blog (all 5 of you) I want to assure you that I don’t expect to get burnt out.
Blogging in my experience is about habits. To start a blog (like any project) is easy; to maintain one is hard and it means acquiring habits which means weaving an activity into your lifestyle. My first blog failed because there was no reason to continue blogging after the first rush of enthusiasm. This blog is, as the name suggests, just research notes – the sort I used to write in black books that I never consulted. It serves a purpose other than venting opinions and gathering an audience, and that purpose is connected to my work so there is reason to maintain.
When I started this second blog I promised myself a couple of things:
- I would avoid politics and not use this as a rhetorical forum
- I would focus on things worth noting for future reference connected to my research
- For any external link I blogged I would try to record some impression of its value, connections to other interests and the questions it engendered. Posing questions has been hard to do consistently.
- I would try to blog at least once a week, but not once a day
- If it became a chore then I would pull back
- I would not be embarassed – I would put up rough and strange ideas in the spirit of open research and recording research ideas. I would avoid self-consciously editing ideas to a polish – that is what publications are for
Obviously these promises are kept more often in tbe breach, but what has worked is that I have repeatedly used the search on this blog to find things for papers I am writing or other tasks. That makes it worth while, when the habits pay off. The relaxed Saturday mornings with the dog at my feet surfing and thinking in a wandering serendipitous way is the other reward. Its what I got into this profession for – thinking with and through. And the unexpected reward is that you post comments that address questions, provide links, and push me to think more.
If there is one thing that would convince me to stop blogging (or at least to turn off the comments feature) it is the comment-spam. Fortunately Matt pointed me to a good tool that helps with Movable Type.
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