Blogging requires you make some immediate assumptions. Like that you have something interesting to say. Keep in mind there is a book about blogging titled something like "No One Cares What You Had For Lunch". So true, even if it was a really, really good sandwich.
Once you start blogging you soon realize it's like having another child that needs feeding and nurturing. Many times over. On some kind of schedule. And to think I have two and then some blogs. Besides worrying that I'm getting blogger's butt and that I will misspell blogger into booger someday, I have copious amounts of blogger's guilt when I don't keep them all up-to-date and freshly turned out.
Many bloggers start out only to lose momentum in a few short months; finding that the well of their wit, wisdom and wonderfully entertaining stories wasn't very deep after all. Some just resent the routine.
Alas there are no blog rescue groups. The internet is littered with the flotsam of untended blogs that bob around like stale croutons in the soup of cyberspace.
I recently was at a large gathering of people I only see from time to time. Several greeted me or introduced me with "I've seen you in the Star Trib" or "She's in the newspaper every week". Although I'm proud to have established even a small presence among such talented people, I kind of cringe from the attention. It's so much easier to write when you think about your followers as a gentle but faceless assemblage. Nothing summons up writers block than the thought of a specific person sitting at their breakfast table reading your silly thoughts.
But if you blog along with the other estimated nine million bloggers and yours happens to get read on any kind of regular basis, be prepared for a new sort of awkward face time when friends and family are among your audience.
You'll find they fall into certain categories...
A. Your kids..