All We Ever Wanted Was A Blog

So you start a blog, with the very best intentions of updating it regularly; and for a few weeks you’re pretty good about putting up new posts; thoughtful ones, with considered ideas. And then a week passes and you realize you’ve fallen behind. You post something hasty, just to get it up, and then you fall behind again. And suddenly you feel all this pressure to come up with something pithy and profound, and yet your mind is void of anything that seems remotely interesting, so you put off writing another post until you’ve got something of interest to say.

And time passes, and yet more time passes, and you still can’t think of anything to say, until you realize it’s been nearly two months since you posted anything. And you realize that you’re not a very good blogger.

I spent part of this morning reading Dooce.com, the personal blog of Heather Armstrong, who posts about all the minutae of her daily life. Much as I enjoy her writing, I am just not that kind of person: I like to keep things private. Which is why I don’t Twitter about every meal I eat and song I hear or post Facebook status updates ten times an hour. My grandmother would have said that nice ladies don’t air their dirty laundry in public — and maybe it’s some part of my puritannical upbringing that pushes me to retain some modicum of privacy — but I don’t think that’s the only reason I’m reluctant to share. I just don’t feel comfortable with strangers knowing the intimate details of my life. So I’ll never be a personal blogger like Dooce.

And I also can’t quite muster the enthusiasm to be a news and commentary blogger. I feel like we’ve reached a saturation point, where every things that happens in the world that is even vaguely news-worthy is immediately thrashed apart and commented on by at least a hundred different blogs. The noise is overwhelming. Do I really have that much to add to the fray? When I’ve already read fifty different homages to Teddy Kennedy, or analyses of the latest Caitlin Flanagan screed in the Atlantic Monthly, or thoughts about the new trends in book covers, I don’t feel energized to jump in to the discussion and contribute my paltry two cents. I mostly just feel exhausted.

What I want to contribute, instead, is a little peace and quiet.

I’m about to have a baby, so I’m going to officially take a little time off from the blog — or, more accurately, take time off from feeling bad about not updating the blog. I will return, when I have more to share — about the next novel (due to hit bookshelves next summer, if all goes well), or about the life of a writer, or about what it feels like to put a sophomore effort out into the world. Otherwise, I’m going to be saving most of my creative energies for the printed page.

Until then –

Janelle