There’s been a lot of talk lately about the fact that blogs are dying. I’ve been blogging for nearly 10 years but I’m not too worried about it. Whether blogging is dead or alive, I will never stop writing.
Here’s the thing about blogging, the way I see it.
Blogging is a medium for people to do what people do best. For some of us, that’s writing. For others, it’s design. For others, it’s complaining and being dramatic and causing a scene. For others, it’s bringing about social change.
But no matter what blogging has been about for you, here’s the good news: you can still do what you do best, with or without blogging.
Blogging will be a good medium for you while it’s here.
Then, when it’s gone… oh well. You’ll find another one. Because for you, it isn’t really about blogging or no blogging.
It’s about being yourself.
There was a period of time in my life when I let blogging overshadow my love for writing. I worried way more about how much traffic was showing up at my website than I did about saying what I really wanted to say, or about getting better at my craft or about enjoying the art of writing.
I let the little, teeny-tiny, insignificant, stupid bit of attention I got go to my head.
I actually lost my love for the thing I love very most—using words to point the way to something beautiful, something that had been there, and will be there, for a very long time.
Whatever blogging does, writing is here to stay.
I noticed recently how so many of the people I admire most starting writing at a young age. Martin Luther King Junior. Dietrich Bonhoeffer. John Steinbeck. I found this so interesting. Not only can writing have a significant impact on your development, but people who make lasting change don’t worry about fads—what’s coming and what’s going.
People we remember and respect just do their work, no matter what. These writers were always writing, even before it was a “thing”.
As for me, I’ll be writing long after writing is a “thing”.
Not because I’m so amazing, but because I can’t not do it. Because it’s inside of me, and because I realize that when something is inside of us and we keep it trapped inside, we die a very slow and painful death.
I don’t need a huge audience to write. I don’t need a bunch of traffic to my blog. Whether blogging dies or not, you’ll still find me here, doing what I know I was made to do all along.
I hope I’ll find you there, too.
Do you need a writing coach? Over the years, I have helped hundreds of writers write books, start blogs and get un-stuck with their writing. I can help you, too.
You hit the mark on this article!! Wow! I agree with you. Blogging paralyzed me for a while. I spent hours writing and rewriting and then freaked out if I blogged something and didn’t receive a hit on the stats counter. One day I just decided that “Screw this!”, I’m a writer and I’m just going to blog whenever and whatever I thought. If people liked it, good for them, if they ignore it, whatever. I lost focus and instead of working on my next novel, I was obsessing about stats (the vanity meter). Since then I’ve been a lot happier, my next novel is speeding along at an incredible rate and I don’t even look at the stats anymore.
One thing I would like to say is that some people blog too much. For me, blogging is light reading, but some of the blogs I follow post up to 8 blog entries a day (multiply that by a couple of blogs and your empty inbox has 56 blog entries within an hour, yikes!). My email inbox gets flooded and their content seems…empty, like they just wrote some random though just so that the fans would remember them. I’m now scanning through them and deleting them without opening a single one. Except when I see Allison Vesterfelt. You don’t spam me with blog entries and when you do blog it is something worth reading. So thank you, what you are doing is awesome and whether blogs die out or not I know I can go to your website and read something that enriches my life.
AJ, I agree with you about the emptiness. Especially after reading a lot of blogging tips and guides, I thought that I needed to post a couple times a week, or I would lose any readers that I had. But if the posts contain valuable content, people probably will remember the blog. I don’t read blogs as frequently as I do before, because most of them don’t post that often. Sometimes it’s months before there’s another post, but it finally appears, it’s so good.
Allison, your posts are insightful and worth waiting for.
I could not agree with you more! I have been sharing some past musings on just this topic over on my blog. And, if I may confess, I am a Google Analytics moron – I don’t even know how to check my stats!!! I don’t care to – I write because, well, like you said, I can’t not write!
I have been through that phase where numbers were so more important than anything else. How much traffic, how many followers, how many comments per post etc. It was so exhausting. Ever since I have seen several blogs come and go and I have noticed a change in the way people blog.
You are right, it is not about blogging per se, it is about being yourself and doing what you love most.
Thank you – I really enjoyed this one! Happy Monday xxx
Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I had not heard that blogging was on the way out though I don’t keep up on stuff like that anyway! I love to write as well though I am not consistent and I haven’t figured out why!
Thank you, Allison, for a great post! I have heard from others that “blogging is out”; but what does that mean? I will still write also – and I DO check to see if I have comments and feel down a bit if nobody comments; then I just shrug it off and remember that I write/blog because I love to write…
What I wonder – being a non-techy person! – if “blogging IS out”, what would happen to our blogs?! Would they still be there for us? My thought is what would happen to my posts??? JUST WONDERING!!
yes.. keep writing and writing.. you are a joy to read… ;)-
Yes! I write/blog for me. To get out of my head. If someone else likes it, wonderful! If someone doesn’t like it, then they don’t have to read it. It’s all good either way. I’ll still be writing for me to breathe easier & clear my head for the next day.
thank you for writing this. I stopped writing on my blog 6 months ago because of what you wrote “There was a period of time in my life when I let blogging overshadow my love for writing and this was one of the most miserable seasons of my life. I worried way more about how much traffic was showing up at my website than I did about saying what I really wanted to say, or about getting better at my craft or about enjoying the art of writing.”
I let that got the better of me and I missed the main thing that God wanted me to do, that is to write about His work in our lives.
Recently I have felt an urge to write again. I feel it’s God trying to talk it in with me, trying to make me understand that it’s not the writing that’s bad. Your writing is a confirmation for me to write again.tks!
I’m a blogger who is completely tired of blogging. I’m not tired of writing, but I’m tired of the vintage-looking photos of perfectly positioned coffee cups, the weekly updates to tell the world I wore a cute outfit and bought a new purse and went out to brunch last weekend, the giveaways, the sponsors, the gimmicks to get more readers. Not that any of these things are inherently bad, but they tend to be overpowering. As a writer, it’s hard to be heard above the noise, and maybe that’s okay. I’ve been realizing that it’s not about how many readers you have, but about whether your own writing moves you. I find that when I write beautiful things, people take notice–even if it’s only one or two. I may not have gone viral, but I still created something that matters.
Yes! I agree that blogging is a medium. For me, it started out as a medium, but then I got caught up in the page views and followers thing. Now, I’ve started over, and my blog now is a medium to share what I think is important. Without my blog, I’m still a writer, and I’m still interested in the topics and ideas that I write about. However, if blogging weren’t a thing, I wouldn’t write the same things/ in the same way that I do on the blog, because I write for the specific medium. Though even if nobody ever reads my posts, I don’t think the time spent on them is wasted. The process I go through to write them forces me to think through my thoughts so I can articulate them, resulting in clearer ideas in my mind.
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