BLOG OR BUST

I’m looking at my screen and see that it’s been over a month since my last posting. What’s the deal with that? Am I the writing equivalent of someone who joins a health club right after New Year’s, but drops out after realizing there’s a reason it’s called working out? Why aren’t I doing my reps?

I’m obviously not alone. Last month, PC Magazine reported that by the end of 2007, there will be more than 100 million blogs. But that number is gradually expected to scale back to about 30 million. Why? Even though 175,000 new blogs are started each day, the total number of abandoned blogs now exceeds 200 million. My 8 year-old son isn’t available to do the math, so all I can surmise is as fast as folks are signing up for memberships at the gym, most of them still end up dropping out. Bunch of cyber wimps.

What’s so appealing about having a blog anyway? Well, being able to say “hey, check out my blog” is still relatively cool, although it does get less sexy when everyone and his cousin has one. And for a writer, it may not be as chic as having a book or syndicated column, but a blog is still part of the mass media universe and just having a site means there exists the chance that millions of people are reading your musings. Sure, it’s about as likely as Bush speaking honestly and intelligently at the same time, but it is possible.

As I said in my initial post (or as I like to think of it, my Grand Opening), people have an innate desire to be heard. Not to just speak, but to be listened to. However, if you plan on having an active blog site, you still have to write the sucker. Yes, sit down at the keyboard and channel those thoughts out of your brain, down your arm, onto the keyboard and up to your screen. So it not only involves thinking, but a little effort. Should have known there'd be a catch.

Having recently had problems with my wrist, which makes working on the computer physical and mental exercise, I was told to check out the new and improved voice recognition software, which is supposed to be amazing. From what I hear (no pun intended), it's been vastly improved since the early versions, which were like working with a translator who had a limited vocabulary and was partly deaf. But the latest stuff is only available for PC users, so us Mac folks are still stuck doing it the old fashioned way. Yet, the day can’t be that far away when I’ll be able to open up an application and say, “you know how I write, bang out a couple thousand words while I go take a nap. And make sure it's good.”

But for now, I’ve got to do my own heavy lifting.

No sweat.