Closing Shop

Anyone visiting here recently might not be surprised to learn this blog is coming to an end.

This post is number 360, and, at present pace, I’ll soon post for the 365th time. That will be enough. Though Joe Felso will circle like a derelict satellite for a while—long enough for me to copy everything—I won’t be adding any new posts after September 15th.

In my head, I’ve composed this pre-mortem several times, looking for ways to explain my departure that won’t sound like (or feel like) failure. I won’t manage it, but I’ve done the hardest part—saying I’m bowing out.

My decision is no rejection of the blogosphere. I’m not turning my nose up at what happens here.

Quite the contrary, the strangest part of blogging— not knowing who’s out there—is also what’s best about it. Publishing may be the pinnacle of success in the real world, but, to a blogger, creating a book can seem akin to creating a statue—no one sees it until the artist has polished every part. When he or she wheels it out of the workshop, it appears to have always existed, as if it’d been found rather than made. Books have instant esteem because they’re already wanted—by publishers at least—and anticipated.

In contrast, blogging has a more intimate charm. It can be like small town radio—you, sitting in a tiny room, talking into a microphone that may or may not work, sending your voice over cornfields, a kind of constant casting out into seas without fish. The idea, it seems, is to speak just to find out what you’ll say. When people listen, it means something.

Most people who don’t blog don’t take blogs very seriously. Friends sometimes seem embarrassed when you say you have a blog, and some real—meaning published—writers can be particularly disdainful, regarding blogs as an affront to editing and artfulness and decorous self-restraint.

That perspective couldn’t be more mistaken. You don’t have to read very long in WordPress or elsewhere to discover articulate, thoughtful, and skilled writers. Maybe more ambitious writers think giving prose or poetry away for free diminishes its quality—and some of the work online IS naïve—but hoping to earn an audience also makes the writing more sincere…and often more compelling.

So, why would I leave? The pace has broken me. The other side of blogging’s intimate charm is its intimate demands, the entreaties of an endlessly needy lover. When the only pay you receive for your writing is attention, you’re challenged with soliciting that attention over and over. I know I could decide not to care, say this blog is all for me, and claim having readers doesn’t matter. That would be a lie, however. I write for readers. I’m grateful for the people who’ve supported me, and, if I’m being honest, I have to say they’ve sustained me, kept me thinking I might have something worthwhile to say when I wasn’t as sure.

Quite rightly, having readers arises partly from being a reader. It’s reciprocal. You are supposed to visit blogs as an invitation to your own. Yet, having spent so much energy creating new product and responding to comments, I’m exhausted. I can’t find the energy to visit elsewhere, only the energy to regret it. Most of my visitors now are image seekers. Most of the reading bloggers are elsewhere, and I don’t blame them.

As little as I visit, I can see how crowded the market is. The proliferation of writing online is daunting. Blogging challenges you to win readers, yes, but it also tries your confidence. You must convince yourself that, of all these writers, you have something important to add. For me, that’s analogous to finding the comment I’d make already affixed to a post. I could just make the comment again and regard it as valuable… because this time I said it. The blogosphere allows me to believe that, to believe self-expression trumps everything else. Maybe some bloggers see venting frustration as their only aim. I’m not judging them—perhaps I shouldn’t hope for more—but I’m tired of wringing my hands.

I’m proud of the volume of work here, and soon seems a good time to stop.

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