Sometimes a caterpillar evolves into a butterfly, but other times—at least in the virtual world of blogging—it's the opposite that occurs.Yes, I refer to Mic's Tape. Admittedly, this analogy is a bit silly and perhaps ill-chosen (can a blog that's never floated higher than five posts in a month really be likened to a creature with wings?). But regardless of whether this blog could ever "fly", there's little doubt that in recent months its activity has slowed to a caterpillar's crawl. And just like the voracious appetite of that famously hungry caterpillar, Mic's Tape has surely done nothing over the past six weeks if not gluttonously devour the time (and hopes) of its loyal, beloved readership who've checked for updates each day in vain.
Pressure, blogging down on me
During these six weeks, brumpelstitskin (BS) has been pondering the causes of this reverse metamorphosis. In doing so, it's become clear that at some point we've lost the plot—instead of a joy, blogging has become a burden.
One would think that a blog with six contributors would have no trouble generating new material, and initially this was the case—if Michail ran out of ideas, MC Gallagher was there to pick up the slack, and so on. And while the BS creative process was never effortless (far from it), for the first year or so this effort remained firmly a labor of love. But as BS exhausted our original list of material, and as the endlessly inspiring 2008 political season winded down, a collective case of writer's blog undeniably crept in. Yet as the creativity dried up, a self-imposed pressure to produce undoubtedly remained. Two twin desires—an inner longing to regularly create new material & an outer longing to not disappoint those readers who regularly check the blog for new material—together fed this self-pressure, which in turn fed upon the fun of creating (and the quality of the creation).
Can't we give blogging one more chance?
So, what can be done about this? For about an hour or so (out of the past six weeks of contemplation), BS considered retirement, but quickly thought better of it: our love of writing is way too strong to throw in the towel. Instead, an alternative two-part solution has come to fruition. First, BS has decided to henceforth reject any self-generated expectations of blogging at a certain frequency (e.g., once per week); rather, we will only write when we feel a genuine inspiration to do so (even if it's only once per year). Second, to address our strong desire to not disappoint those who've regularly checked the blog, BS wishes to formally encourage our beloved readers to sign up for automatic notifications of new Mic's Tape posts (this way, you'll only need to check the blog when you're certain there's new material).
To receive automatic notifications, you can either: (a) ask me to set it up so that a notification of each new post will be sent directly to your email address; or (b) subscribe yourself to Mic's Tape posts via a web portal/aggregator service such as iGoogle, Google Reader or Netvibes using the "Subscribe To" tool on the right side of the blog. Just let me know if you have any questions about this.
In closing, here's hoping that the future will regain in fun what it loses in frequency.
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