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Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts



This is my 100th posting on The Uncarved Block. Woo hoo!

I wrote my first post on June 27, 2008. At about that time I saw an article that said that the average blog was read by six people and was maintained for three months. I don’t know if that is still true (and I don’t really know if it was true at the time.) Regardless, it feels good to have gone well beyond those anemic numbers.

On the other hand, four and a half years to post 100 entries is hardly a raging torrent of prose. For a blog like The Daily Kos, 100 postings is barely a flicker. But I feel like this is a moment worthy of my notice and appropriate for reflection. I’m not sure why, but over the years I have gone through periods where I felt like I had a lot to say – a lot to write – and that I wanted to put it out in public. But then there were other times when I would go for days, weeks, or even months without writing a word. Friends tell me that this inconsistency is deadly for a blog; people only want to subscribe to something that they can read every day like the newspaper, or at the worst, once a week like a TV show.

One of the hardest things about continuing to write is the lack of feedback. I’m able to get reports of the number of visitors to the blog and its various posts. I find these statistics confusing at best. Let’s say this week there were 500 page views, 250 visitors, and 200 unique visitors. Hmmmmmm. What do those numbers really tell me? Of all those views and visitors, none left a trace – not a comment, not a “like” on Facebook, not a Google+, not a tweet. Did these visitors enjoy what they read? Was it valuable to them? Did they even read it, or did they find the post through a search engine only to discover that it wasn't what they wanted, then leave within seconds to search for something else?

I wish people would give me some kind of feedback, some crumb or clue, even if it is negative. I think I would be happier getting comments like “why are you wasting your time on this crap” than facing the current state of silence. I find it disconcerting that a post like Repairing an Antique Soda Siphon can get 4000 hits but only three comments. The other 3997 readers had nothing to say? Ah, well. I am fairly sure that most people that get to a posting on this blog arrived there through a search engine. They search for something like “Sparklets soda siphon,” which takes them to that post. Even if it is the material that they wanted, they don’t stick around. They wanted to find out about Sparlets soda siphons, got the information they were looking for, and left. They aren't inspired to see what I have to say about seed cleaning, or Rodney King, or dogs having Buddha nature.

I had some excellent feedback from a good friend about the blog as a whole. He said that I cover too diverse a set of ideas and suggested that I make it much more focused. He said it should be about food, gardening, and my dog - and nothing else. He is quite right. Such a blog could generate a following, a readership, possibly even a dialogue. But it’s not really what I want to write. I want to write about whatever interests me at the time. So I have to choose. Do I write what I want to write and not get the response I desire, or do I try to get the response that I want without the opportunity to ramble. Sigh.

My second post, way back in June of '08, was entitled “Graffiti”. In it I pondered the question of why I was writing this blog at all. Ninety eight posts later I still don’t have an answer. I’ll check in again at post 200 to tell you what I've found.
I've been thinking a lot lately about the apparent human need to record one's thoughts. Or maybe the goal is to declare one's existence. Or am I mistaken? Might it be a "need" to communicate, not a need to record?

Blogging is, of course, today's obvious example. In a bygone age it was writing in a diary or a journal. Going back further, could one claim cave paintings as part of the same inherent drive?

Writing for profit (literature and journalism) feel like something different, though having met many writers, it is clear to me that the internal need to write drove these people to careers in writing, and, for most it is that need to write, more than the profit motive, that keeps them in the field.

I was sitting in Greens Restaurant in San Francisco earlier this week trying to "eat with intention," when these thoughts came unbidden into my mind. I wanted to write them down, which is one of the reasons that I started this blog. Why did I want to commit my thoughts to "the page?" Having no idea who might read this, or if it will ever be read (given the millions of blogs in the world,) it seems likely to be more about the writing and less about the communication. Coincidentally, the next night I was at a dinner party for writers. A non-writer spouse-attendee asked me why I write. My response was that I mostly write to get things out of my head so that I don't have to think about them anymore. This was not a flip answer. My thoughts have a tendency to spin and spiral inside my uncarved block until I get them the hell out of there.

I wonder about people who are illiterate. Do they feel a desire to write down their thoughts? Does being illiterate make that a non-option, so they don't even think about it? Does illiteracy lead in any way to graffiti? Graffiti can certainly be a creative expression, but more often it feels to me more like an expression of existence, "I was here." I'd be curious to see if there is any statistical relationship between illiteracy and graffiti. Perhaps in my next lifetime (or the one after that,) I'll need to plan on being a sociologist.