Monday, July 26, 2010

Again I Come to the End

Once again I am feeling that I'm not sure blogging is working out.

If I blog once a day, I get 100 visits/day.
If I blog several times a day about the latest topics I can find, at my wittiest, I get 160 visits a day.

Not that hits, or growth, is everything. I don't know.

I've been blogging for ~8 years now, and my readership has hardly changed at all. I need to admit that I just don't have the blogging touch, whatever it is that attracts readers and grows a site.

I should be working harder on the articles I have been commissioned to write, and that I hope to write for somebody. My blogging is certainly not making editors decide that they definitely ought to seek me out and hire me -- if anything, probably the opposite.

I should be working on a book or two -- if I don't now, I never will.

Blogging divides my attention with no recompense. I need to get more serious.

I need to make more money.

I also need to focus on my health. I need to lose weight, but more than that, since my episode of cervical stenosis this past winter, I am still having trouble walking correctly. You probably couldn't tell from looking at me walk, but my legs just don't work right. Even when I walk a few steps, they just don't work right. In the middle of the night when I walk up and have to go to the bathroom, I am peg-legged. During the day I have trouble walking for even 50 ft sometimes. Since my surgery I haven't walked for more than 10 minutes -- my legs just get tired and cramped up and it's like walking through mud. It's been six months since my surgery and is not getting a lot better. For someone who in their 30s went on a couple of memorable and magical long-distance hikes -- 350 miles in 6 weeks in 1994, and 1500 miles in 5 months in 1996 -- this is difficult to accept, and heartbreaking if I let myself think about it, which I have not done since my surgery.

--

Maybe I can't write books. But I used to make a decent living from writing articles, and I need to get back to that. In any case, I just can't spend any more time hoping that blogging will somehow build my name or make it easier (i.e. more profitable) to be a writer. It doesn't. I'm not an A-lister, and I never will be.

--

I watch Oliver, who is so little, and to whom everything is a wonder. Just jumping around is, for him, a definite joy. I remember that feeling, sort of -- do you? -- and I envy him.

Thanks for reading. I will definitely miss most of you.

I appreciate your readership, and, especially your comments. Take care.

5 comments:

rhhardin said...

Oliver is an opportunist.

They tend to be optimistic.

Anonymous said...

Farewell and good health to you. I will miss you.

Franz

Anonymous said...

"If I blog once a day, I get 100 visits/day.
If I blog several times a day about the latest topics I can find, at my wittiest, I get 160 visits a day.
"

If so it's odd because QS is a bloody good blog. Otoh, there are some awful blogs that get very high readership, so perhaps numbers aren't everything.

I say keep up the good work. All your posts are worth reading and some are gems.

Steve Bloom said...

I'm very sorry to hear about your health situation, David. Of course your priority has to be taking care of yourself, first medically and then financially.

I suggest keeping the blog but only posting when you feel like it. Post links to things you think people should know about, if only as one-liners. Post links to your articles. Etc.

Regardless, do take care.

Anonymous said...

Is it the "I'm done blogging" time of year again?

Look, I've been reading this blog for awhile (I was drawn to it when you called Matthew Yglesias out) and I learn a lot.

Face it: you suck at internet politics. That's no insult, but that's the kind of thing that draws in readers. Either write the blog because you love to, or play the game.