When I started blogging 5 years ago, I had no idea what I was letting myself in for. I thought I was just publishing words on the internet. But it turned out to be much more than that.
The first post I ever wrote was 100 words long. I didn't think about it much and I knocked it off in a few minutes. Last Monday's post (about a walk across south Croydon) was 1000 words long. It took an hour and a half to research, and a similar amount of time to travel to the start. The walk itself took four hours, and when I got home I took considerably longer to fiddle around with my photos and to write up my journey. Then I added several pertinent links, as appropriate, and drew a Google map so that you could follow the route of my journey. Oh how times change.
Most people have a blogging style somewhere along the spectrum from shallow to deep. Shallow bloggers have it quick, and they have it easy. They look around for other people's stuff to copy, and then they cut and paste it with a brief comment at the end. A typical shallow blogpost goes like this...
"I just saw this [10 lines quoted from somewhere else] I am . "
Shallow bloggers make the mistake of thinking that we care what they think. Sometimes they're right, and their comment boxes clog up with ranting bile from like-minded souls. But most of the time they're jabbering to an audience of nil. They stick adverts in their sidebar and wonder why nobody clicks on them. They wait for a book deal that never comes. They use their blogs solely to react, and not to interact. They put almost nothing in, and so they get nothing out. I'm not a fan of shallow blogs.
The best blogs are deep, at least in part. They reflect the thoughts and interests of the author. They muse on life's daily struggle and cultivate grand ideas. They're written for the love of it. And they take time and effort to produce. Quite a considerable amount of time, in some cases. Never, under any circumstances, should a deep blogger ever tot up the total amount of time they spend blogging, because it'll be out of all proportion to any returns gained. All those hours, or even days, spent tapping away on the keyboard to produce interesting content. And for what?
Blogging isn't worth it, materially speaking. It might get you noticed in the media, briefly, but it probably won't. It might make you some money, but probably only peanuts. It's something you should always do for yourself, and not for others.
It's a bit like gardening, really. There's no point whatsoever in creating a beautiful landscaped garden, except because you want to. Nobody else is going to stop and admire your garden, apart from friends you specifically invite around and a few random passers by. You'll spend countless afternoons digging and weeding, and you'll spend a fortune on plants and shrubs. Nobody else would care if you concreted over the lawn or let the whole place go to seed, not in the grand scheme of things. But if you put in a bit of effort, over a long period of time, you can create an environment of which you're hugely proud. The outcome should always be measured in contentment, not hard currency. And I'd rather read an exquisitely landscaped garden than a scrap of crazy paving any day.
