Tumbleweeds

 

I have to get something off my chest. Apart from my epic cold medicine rant, I try to avoid fussing about things here. I want this to be a calm, cozy, drama-free spot for everyone who needs a little escape. That's what it is for me.

But I do need to write a little about something that I see every now and then, which just bugs me.

I want to be clear: I understand the reasons people stop blogging. From something as simple as a changing interest in hobbies to something as complex as grief, and everything in between, sometimes writing a blog just stops fitting in to someone's life. It's nobody's business why anyone "abandons" their blog, although people do grow to care about the writers they read and are naturally concerned when they disappear with no explanation. 

None of that is what bugs me. What bugs me is loving writing a blog but stopping because "blogging is out" and "nobody reads blogs anymore." 

People blog for a lot of different reasons, and a lot of people blog mainly for the feedback. If they don't get feedback, they stop. That's okay. They're not getting what they want out of it.

I don't blog for feedback. I'm a writer at heart. I have been writing since I was a little girl. I wrote competitively in high school. I've been writing this blog for 13 years. The feedback is a very special bonus, but I would still be writing even if nobody was reading. 

There's a 1969 novel written by Louis L'Amour called Conagher in which a widow living in the American West writes poems and attaches them to tumbleweeds, to blow across the desert, perhaps to be read. Perhaps not. I won't spoil the story.

I think of that image often when sending my words and photographs and creations out into the world. I never know how many people will read and see them, where in the world they will be, what they will think about them. I just tie them to something I can't even see and let them blow away.

I rarely ever look at my blog stats, but Google can tell me everything I could possibly want to know about how my blog "performs." I can see exactly how many people read each post, and which countries most of my readers are in on any given day. (Waving at Hong Kong and Singapore today!) Sometimes it's surprising, sometimes puzzling. And it always makes the world seem small to know there are people in Brazil, or India, or Iraq (!) who are reading my writing and looking at my stitching and my cats.

I'm not concerned with "performance." I'm not bothered if "blogging is out" or "nobody reads blogs anymore" (they clearly do). I just like to write. And take pictures. And stitch. And share with whoever is out there, be they one or one million.

So if you are among the "I love blogging but blogs are out" folks, I encourage you to do what you love to do and pay no mind to people telling you it's out of fashion. If you enjoy it, do it anyway. Ignore "stats" and "followers" and "likes" and all the ways the modern cyberculture tries to shape your behavior. Just ignore all of it. Make things, take pictures, write words. And then tie them to tumbleweeds and let them go.

Perhaps to be read. Perhaps not.