I woke up this morning and said some very bad words to myself and to Frankie, who doesn’t take it personally when I curse.
The problem? I had promised to post two runner up winners to my Is Your Dog Boring You? contest, and realized that I couldn’t — really, didn’t want to — chose after all. The selections were too close in quality (all high). I knew and liked too many of the participants, whether in person or on line, and I didn’t want to offend any of them.
Blah, blah, blah.
But I had promised. And I take my commitment to my blog and its readers seriously.
Then in my email inbox — yes, that’s how I prefer to receive blogs, because my RSS feeds overwhelm me — I found a great post by my pal Amy Burkert at GoPetFriendly.com. Called Bullied by the Blog, it explores letting an obligation to blog take the place of enjoying the experiences that she and Rod might eventually blog about.
I’m not quite in the same position as Rod and Amy are, because the lines between my paid day job as a writer and my unpaid day job as a blogger are far more blurred (sometimes too closely for comfort, but that’s another story).
Still, it led me to try to crystallize the larger questions that have been nagging at me lately: Whether I was being driven by my blog, rather than vice versa; what I wanted out of blogging; and whether I was getting it. I mentioned this to Amy in the comments section of her post and we agreed that it would be fun to put together some questions along these lines to pose to other pet bloggers.
So… Amy and I will hammer out the questions. If you think you’d be interested in answering them as part of an end-of-the-year or early-next year blogfest introspective/retrospective, give a holler below.
And I’ll get to that contest, in one form or another. Probably. But definitely not today.
Take that, blog!
12/18 Update: I’m hoping that some of the pet bloggers on The Saturday Blog Hop will join in. We’d love to know how you all feel about blogging and whether there are things you’d like to change about your blog — and your blogging — in the new year.
Welcome to the Saturday Pet Bloggers Blog Hop brought to you by Two Little Cavaliers, Life with Dogs, and Confessions of the Plume!
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yes i would be interested!
i’ve been having some doubts lately myself, and am considering exiting stage left after only one year.
hey ho, on to the questions then please. [i hope i won’t be the only one ;p]
Fantastic! I’m looking forward to working on this with you.
I’d be happy to answer your pet-blogger questions. I share many of the same sentiments… I get stuck when my blog starts to feel like an obligation instead of a fun project I started because I adore my dogs. I’m really curious to see the questions and, of course, the results!
I’d be interested! Right now I’m in this blogging challenge–one blog a day around a prompt that a team sends out–and it’s been hard to tailor it to a dog blog. So I’ve started to be in the category of obligation (except, I enjoy the idea of blogging about what *I* want to, which I have to some extent with this challenge).
Good luck with the contest decision! Tough one!
Anyway, count me in for answering questions!
Well, I started blogging pretty much 5 days a week in April 2007, and I’m still at it. Like you, it’s part of my “real job” as a writer. Do I have doubts? Sure. Will I cut back and/or quit? Probably not. For me, it’s more about retooling my purpose and focus.
I would answer your questions.
Edie,
Mmmm hmmmm. Blogging, tweeting, being social in the digital universe, and experiencing in the non-digital universe. Sometimes I catch myself framing thoughts in 140 characters or less. I used to do that when I wrote more haiku. Oh, yeah, I’m in.
Well, once again Edie you (and Amy) have come up with an interesting and thought-provoking topic. I often wonder why I feel the need to post frequently – I suppose to stay relevant and in front of people, but I hadn’t thought about whether my blog owned me or I owned it.
I would TOTALLY be up for this! I await your and Amy’s great questions!
This sounds really interesting… keep me posted!
I have only recently started blogging but I find as the days go on and I meet more people, I have felt a bit more pressure to keep up a regular posting schedule, even if I don’t have all that much rivetting to say. So lately I am looking for blog fodder everywhere. I don’t know if it has gotten to the point that it has prevented me from truly experiencing the things I write about, but I could see it heading there.
All of this babbling is to say that I am definitely interested in helping out with this very insightful project.
Of course – always happy to toss in my two cents, and this has always been a huge push-pull with me. When I began two years ago, I wrote 5 or 6 times a week. Now I’m fine with three times week, but I don’t want those three days to be regimented – I don’t see the point given RSS (or email Edie:) and during the holidays, I like to back off after I’ve presented some good info. It recharges the batteries!
I always think my writing is better when I’m involved with the topic and happy/focused/serious about what I’m doing. I don’t like writing just to fill up a daily requirement set by who, Google? – and I don’t know how someone reading something like that could appreciate it – unless you’re reporting news which you can get anywhere, so that’s no path to a larger audience, google or no. If your content is good, that’s what should matter.
If someone is paying you to blog, that’s a different story. Then you have to be good to great all the time…
I’d be interested in seeing your questions and answering them. I think you probably already know that I have a passion for animals, in particular dogs, and that is why I come to blogs such as yours. But for me, I don’t primarily write posts about dogs or animals – I have, but in general they are life stories or about my new business. And, I don’t write to get a number of posts per week – I write when I can and when I feel there’s something I truly want to write about. A couple of times I wrote a post because I thought I needed to get a new one up – because it seemed everyone I was following had 4 or 5 new posts per week. However, I ended up not publishing these posts because I just wasn’t feeling what I was writing – it felt more like a chore. I don’t want to write that way and I sure don’t want anymore chores in my life.
Da lady takes hiatuses (hiati?) when she start feeling dat way, den picks it back up when she more inspired and objective. She been letting life take precedence over my bloggy lately too. sulksulksulk
Sure, we would like to take da survey.
Dude, just pick one on da merits of da photo and forget about giving preference to furends. Make a rule dey can only win once a year. Next contesty somebody else gets it! There is no need to feel guilty – save da guilt for when you do someting really bad!
Contact me if you need help being bad. MOL!!!!
Funny you should mention the photos. There were only two with photos and those were the ones I was planning to reward with runner up status. It was then that I started second guessing myself, and thinking about other friends (if you’re a regular on my blog you’re considered a friend).
Someone’s guilt free zone has been breached, hasn’t it? Hmmm…if I eat the last piece of carrot cake in the freezer before 10am I could probably let my other guilts go….
eat the carrot cake.
p.s. sorry to interrupt this coversation :p
Ha, not at all! I did eat the carrot cake — but waited until 2:30pm. That’s still a bit early but not as bad as in the morning. And I didn’t even have a glass of wine with it, as I tend to do in the evening.
I’d rate it a 6 out of 10 on the guilt scale.
Hi Y’all!
We just hopped by to see what y’all were barkin’ about today! To give y’all the short answer about our blog…it all started as a journal at the suggestion of some family members so the nieces and nephews could keep up with what and where we were and share with their kids. It’s been evolving ever since. But I’ve been wondering when morning comes and I feel pressured to get up and put up a new page…y’all know the drill.
Hawk aka BrownDog’s Momma
P.S. The original site http://browndogcbr.livejournal.com/ still exists, but is basically a duplicate of the blogspot site.
I haven’t run into this problem yet because I just started my blog about a month ago but I’d still like to participate.
Our focus has changed a little since we started our newest blog, http://www.PetBlogsUnited.com. Now we have more responsibility for keeping a larger community going than just my regular blog.
Oskar & pam
I’d love to help with your questions. I feel bullied by my blog at times too… look forward to seeing your questions!