I’ve been on a bit of a writing streak here and I’ve told myself that the main purpose of this blog is to be a kind of dump for my compulsion to write. Nonetheless this could be achieved by means of jottings in a notebook or setting a blog to private, the latter of which seems a bit pointless because then you could just write stuff. However, as I’ve intimated before, this doesn’t necessarily work very well. The initial idea was to get extraneous distracting thoughts out of the way so as to continue with the “real” business of life, whatever that is. However, this doesn’t really work because in fact it just seems to stimulate my thoughts and, to some extent, waste time.
In connection with this, the question arises of why I should concern myself with popularity and the engagement of others. After all, if I’m just doing this for myself, why should I care about what other people think or even read? This suggests to me that my motivations are not exactly as I present them to myself. Is there any self-deception involved?
Something seemed to happen after my day’s break last weekend, or perhaps I’m making pattern where none objectively exists. I may not be engaging effectively with my readers because I haven’t received any comments on posts that I’ve made since that break. But, is that a problem? If I’m doing this for myself, why should I be concerned about a lack of response?
I think I should, and this is not to blame anyone for not responding – ostensibly I should be detached about responses or engagement anyway. However, it suggests that what I’ve done in the past week is not connecting with the world in a manner I find hard to define. Two of my posts in that time have attempted to capture some kind of topical reference, namely ballpoint pens and the Coral Triangle. In that sense they may come across as forced, although I also felt they chimed with me. Others are mainly just things I’m interested in or attempts to open and continue conversations.
Once again this week, and for the forseeable future, I shall be taking a break for Saturday, when there will be no post, although I may investigate the ethics of scheduling such a post, which is a bit of a quandary. I hope to come back on Sunday with something a bit more engaging. But you can only really be the person you are, and I happen to be that child who used to eat pencils, and I am still that child in a way. If you can’t understand why pencils are nice and chocolate is a bit nasty, what can I do?
A Box Of Chocolates 
This is a comment…
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LOL! I can’t tell if I should care or not though. I mean I do, because it’s you, and that’s special, but do you know what I mean? xx
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Lol
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I’ve gone right off chocolate, but I dont see pencils replacing the stuff. As for your readers not responding; that doesnt mean they are not reading. Maybe their response is not strong enough to make a comment . One never writes just for yourself using a social media platform. To do that use an old fashioned paper journal. If you write on any digital platform you are expecting people to see, read, and respond. Just one question……if you read a book and have strong feelings either way about it, would you write to the author?……what am I saying!?! You probably would, but would “normal” people do it? Nah.
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I wrote to Douglas Adams once but apart from that I don’t think I’ve written to an author I don’t know about their work. I’d agree that my motives are mixed because otherwise why write a blog at all? But yes, I know what you mean. However, there are presumably ways of eliciting a response. There was plenty on my YT channels.
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Speaking personally, I haven’t commented because I haven’t felt that I had anything to add. Your ‘specialised side’ (and I know you have a number of specialisations) is much less accessible to the ‘general reader’ (that’s me, I’m afraid) than your autobiographical side – because when you go into autobiographical mode, you usually come up with something relatable, as with your excellent two-parter on Leicester University in the eighties.
The word ‘rumination’ is much on my mind (ha!) at the moment, owing to work-related matters. I first came across the verb in Shakespeare’s Henry V (Chorus Speech preceding Act 3, if memory serves). It’s a rather strange word to hear someone under forty come out with (I’m working with students) but I’m a bit shocked that people under thirty still use words at all – one would’ve thought they’d have gone the same way as CDs by now!
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Thanks. I think it’s more that I don’t know how strongly I feel about people responding, except that if they give feedback it probably helps me write better.
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