You know, It’s funny… A while back I made a decision. One that actually I still think was good for certain reasons but ever since making it – and implementing it – I’ve sort of regretted it.
Actually, that’s a lie… I’ve really regretted it.
But, not in the way you might think. I’ve actually enjoyed a bit of time to myself and living life rather than writing about it. More than that; I’ve managed to sort myself out completely, grow up and have hopefully improved not only my writing style – but the content too.
A few months ago (September 2009), I made the decision to delete everything from this very blog.
Everything.
Posts, comments and media all ended up in the virtual recycling bin of my server and I left myself with nothing – apart from the odd backup here and there.
So what prompted it?… Well actually, it was quite simple – in my mind anyway.
I thought that nobody wanted to read me blathering on about stuff anymore… Well, actually no. I thought nobody wanted to read pages and pages of self obsessed indulgence anymore. Why would they? – They can read all that on Twitter and Facebook in 140 characters or less!
In fact it was simpler than that.
Why bother to spend hours of writing self obsessed rubbish which could be condensed into 140 characters and a photo?
Genuinely, at the time, I thought Twitter was killing off blogs and bloggers alike.
Well, not physically killing them – that would be completely irresponsible and slightly illegal, but possibly providing an easy way out. Like a metaphorical genocide for interweb geeks, Twitter was there – the technological Hitler of our time. Really, it’s simple… all of your blog readers follow you on Twitter and you start to wonder why you bother with a blog at all. Suddenly you wake up one morning to find your laptop charger sliced in two and your external hard drive sucking in the exhaust fumes of your car using a cleverly made hosepipe attachment.
Ok, so I’ve changed my mind… and quite importantly, I’m not embarrassed at all that I’ve done it – it happens, and we’re allowed to do it!
So what is my plan now that “The Blog Is Back”?
Well firstly, I’m not going to apologise. Whilst I love the fact that thousands of people used to read the ‘Old’ blog, it was an experiment to see if A) I can write, and B) If people would enjoy what I write. I did it for 2 years and enjoyed it. But, if I’m honest, towards the end it got a bit labourious… I felt like I had to write funny, childish gumph and I got tired of it.
I found myself obsessed by readers…. and how many of them there was.
It doesn’t matter how many people read what I write, as long as every single one of them enjoys it and can relate to it in one way or another. Yes, my opinions aren’t going to be to the taste of everybody – but surely that is the whole point in writing in the first place?… To provoke discussion, or failing that – to sound like a complete and utter arse.
Obviously, there isn’t any point at all in writing unless there isn’t anyone there to read it. But actually, now, I’m writing this for me… I’m the reader – after all they’re my memories, thoughts and feelings. You, you’re invited to read them…. by all means, be my guest… but please don’t come hassling me if it’s been a while since I’ve posted. If I choose to post, it means I have the time and inclination to do so – and I’m (hopefully) not churning out rubbish posts because there’s pressure to publish hourly, daily, weekly…. It’ll happen in it’s own time – I promise.
I really did get bored of living my life to fit it within a blog. Surely a blog should be about life, not the other way around.
Well now, I’m living life… and this is my way of remembering it.
Anyway… 140 characters is a little bit tedious isn’t it?!