I really didn’t want to have to do this.  I never thought I would have to do this.

I have reached the point where I know it’s going to be hard to keep the blog going.  Real life commitments, as well as (I’ll admit it) me spending money in other foolish ways – hello, holiday! – have meant that I just don’t have the money lying around to keep this place up.  However, as you all know, I vehemently refuse to advertise on this site.  Most people who have sent me emails about advertising here have tempted me, I will admit.  Offers of a hundred dollars straight up plus payment for click throughs did make me turn my head a little… until I saw they were from gold selling and account selling companies.

No way in HELL.  Not on my blog.

So, I went with the slightly more palatable option. A donate button.  I know that they don’t work very well (most people manage to scrape together a few dollars here and there over the course of a year from them), but I didn’t want to be promoting someone’s services on my blog.  That’s not what this place is about at all.

I just want to make it very clear: there is ZERO expectation for you to donate.

I know that sounds silly, right?  I’m not standing behind you pestering.  I’m not setting up some weird system where you can only see the content if you pay.  But I know that I, as a reader, sometimes feel obligated to donate money to things when there is a donate button there.  It’s like I feel like a cheapskate if I don’t.  Well… don’t feel that way.  If I can save even $5 through the use of a donate button, I’ll consider it a success.  Hell, even if I don’t raise anything, it’ll just sit there.

But anything you would like to chip in would be appreciated!  No pressure though.  Promise.

Surprise!  Today (Friday 23rd October) I will be appearing on the TNB Roundtable with a host of other bloggers.  The podcast starts at 8pm PST, and there is a live chat room and everything.  All the other bloggers will sound awesome, and me?  Well, I’ll try not to sound too stupid.

Hope to see you there!

Y’know, I often want to write posts about my Druid.  I play her just as much as I play my Warlock now, and she feels almost like a second main to me.  Now… this blog really doesn’t look very Druid friendly, does it? So, I decided to give Hermia a space of her own to call home.

Now, this space does not mean that I will be quitting writing here at Destructive Reach.  Saresa will always be my main, and I will write here just as much (and hopefully a little bit more) than I already do.  I just felt that this place was starting to get littered with Druidic stuff, and I didn’t like that much at all.  So, just as I started a RL blog to clear up a lot of the crap that was getting written here… I started a Druid blog to shoo that over to somewhere else as well.  Feel free to head on over and have a look around, but, be gentle – she is just learning the ropes after all!

So, I have been sitting here, scratching my head, trying to think of something to write about.  I haven’t written anything at all Warlock related for a while now, and as I was pondering what on earth I could say that was new about Warlocks, some comments from other bloggers and readers have come to mind.

• Wow, it’s been a long time since I posted about <insert class here>
• There seems to be a lot of ‘General WoW Blogs’ cropping up.
• I just can’t find anything new to say about <insert class here>
• I’m finding it difficult to define my audience now/It is hard to tell what my audience is looking for
• I can’t find myself a niche anywhere!

The fact of the matter is, content becoming more accessible has killed what many bloggers write about.  Now, I am not saying that accessibility is a bad thing… it’s just harder to write about something which is talked about everywhere already, because, hey, everyone is doing it!  I have never been one for writing guides anyway (seriously, a guide from me comes out drier than a piece of burnt toast, and just as nasty tasting), but in BC I kinda had a little niche of my own carved out.  I didn’t really see too many other Destro Warlocks out there blogging about end game content.  ‘Twas just me (and probably a billion zajillion other people as well that I just happened to miss!)  Perhaps it’s because no one else could see the potential in blogging about a class with a one spell rotation (believe it or not, that one spell rotation led to some insane theory crafting.  When your rotation is THAT simple, you have to min-max everything to the millionth degree, or people are totally on your ass about it). 

And, hey, I was proud of myself for being in end game content.  That sounds completely dicky, but it’s true.  I mean…

• I had never played a computer game before WoW except The Sims.  And a little Warcraft: Orcs and Humans waaaaaaaay back in the day.  Like when I was 12, or how ever old I was when that came out.  And I totally sucked balls at it.  Still do. (Of course, since I started playing WoW, I have also played some DotA.  I suck at that as well.  Figures)
• When I started playing WoW, I was the world’s BIGGEST noob.  I had no idea what I was doing.  You know the stereotype of ‘Chick starts playing because her boyfriend does.  She totally fails, and he has to help her out with everything.  People think she is a ditz’?  That was me!
• I have NEVER been one to dedicate myself to grinding stuff.  Blah.  Grinding?  How is that fun?  Of course, everyone told me that to succeed in end game, you had to grind.  I guess I proved that wrong.
• And, since I am totally one to brag, using the ‘Gear+Skill+PC/Connection+Spec = Performance’ equation… I totally kicked Warlock ass during BC.  Gear?  Definitely never as good as the other locks in the guild.  PC/Connection?  Hello, laptop running at 10fps on a 1500/250 broadband connection!  Oh, and using wireless?  Yet, I still out-dps’ed most of them more often than not (except for one, who I was always neck and neck with… and his gear was sooo much better than mine!)  /strokes epeen

Now, well…

I guess I am in ‘end game content’, depending on your interpretation.  Certainly the accessible level of end-game (no hard modes for me, no sirree).  Somewhat like the rest of the raiding population.  What can I say about that which you don’t already know?

DPS wise, I am very ‘meh’.  Totally unreliable damage.  When I get my rotation running sweetly, I can get up there with the others.  When I can’t, well, it all goes to shit.  Not to mention, my gear, well… it’s not of a standard that you would expect at this point in the game.  So, I am hardly qualified to talk numbers when my own are so all over the place.

I don’t talk strat.  That’s what all these other sites are for, not to mention that the strats are so darned straight forward that there is no real point.

I feel like I have gotten way off topic here, but essentially – I understand where this ‘so what the hell do I blog about?’ slump is coming from.  While accessibility and homogenisation are no doubt good for the game and the community, it makes it damned hard to write!  And, that, my friends, is why so many blogs are changing focus.

So, I kinda blurted it all over Twitter before I even got to write a blog post about it.  Whoops.  hence, you all kinda know this, but no one knows the full story.

One, somewhat drunken night (being Saturday night just gone), I finally did something that I have been tempted to do for a long time: I cancelled my accounts.  Both of them.  The alt account finishes in just a couple of days, and the main one finishes on the 10th of October.

Why?  Well, it’s pretty simple really: I just got tired of the game.  I haven’t been enjoying it.  Every time I log in I feel guilty about not getting this, that or the other done, about not being prepared enough, about not having gold… I just don’t have fun anymore.  Even raiding seems to have lost its lustre.  I don’t know whether I am craving something a lot more hardcore, or what it is.  At the moment I spend about 20 hours a week raiding between my 2 servers, which I consider to be an awful lot of hours put in, but I don’t seem to feel any sense of satisfaction at the end.  You know, the ‘We just did a really hard fight and I am SO fucking proud of everyone’ feeling.

And the grind is god damn killing me.  Why do they keep adding more shit to grind?

So, WoW has until the 10th to try and balance the table, or swing it back to the other side.  If it can do that, I’ll resubscribe to my account.  After all, I do love this blog!

But, what can WoW do to make me love it again, like I used to?  To bring back that ‘honeymoon’ feeling?

• Make PvP fun – LOL.  Never going to happen, I am just not wired to enjoy PvP.
• Reduce the grind – OK, so making gold has always been a bit of a grind.  I have never had a decent amount of gold for that very reason!  However, I don’t enjoy grinding out badges to get current gear, either.  Let me get my gear the old fashioned way – by raiding!
• Just be fun already – nothing feels fun or fresh anymore.  Cataclysm may fix that, but I suspect it’ll just be the same old stuff in a fancy new wrapper.

Not sure why I am disillusioned, but I am.  However, don’t unsubscribe yet – there’s still hope!  Not to mention, a few possible fixes for the blahs that I am pondering, if I have the courage to do them ;-)

Warning: Not a WoW Post, I repeat, not a WoW Post

Today, I decided to do some random blog chores.  I have been in a bit of a snit, and one of the best ways for me to deal with that is to just do menial tasks until I have my head sorted again.  Well, one of those things that I decided to fix was my Twisted Nether Wiki Page.  I hadn’t even looked at my page in a long while, and I was sure that most of it would turn out to be inaccurate (as it happens, the only things I really had to change were my server and age).  Well, while I was there, I got to pondering.

I honestly never thought this blogging caper would last.  If I had a dollar for every idea that I had, for every half-started project, well, I’d certainly not be working for a living!  When I started out on my lil ol’ wordpress.com blog, I had no idea what I was doing.  I made so many mistakes!  When I go back to my old haunt, I generally end up leaving after 5 minutes, cringing over every post that I wrote at the time.  Somehow, though, I managed to find my first ever subscribers while I was there, and had a couple of dedicated commenters (who had blogs of their own, but have long since stopped blogging).

When I moved over to self-hosted, I was terrified.  My theme was an absolute mess, I had no knowledge of CSS, and had never used Photoshop before in my life.  Eventually, the place straightened itself out, and we ended up here, at its current incarnation.  The writing improved, the image editing improved (and then rapidly declined again when I became far too lazy to work images into every post), and my little community of readers and commenters started to come.

Somehow, in that time, I managed to get asked to go on two podcasts (small change for some, but I remember when I got an email from Leala of Epic Dolls, asking me if I wanted to talk about Warlocks on their show).  I was totally baffled – why me?  Surely there would be someone more qualified to talk about it than myself (something that is still very true!).  I was so nervous that I remember making several mistakes throughout the show – to this day I have not listened to it – but it was an awesome, awe-inspiring experience.  Then I was also fortunate enough to be invited on to the Twisted Nether Blogcast (which was equally, well, scary!).  Guess what?  I haven’t listened to that one either!

I guess I can count myself fortunate enough to be considered a small success.  I am still here, still writing, and more people pop in to the big purple blog each day (although, seriously guys, I don’t get it!).  I am more involved in the Blog Azeroth community now than I ever was before (although I have been slacking off lately, and really need to remedy that).  Sure, I’m never going to make money off this little page.  I don’t think anyone is ever going to learn anything useful.  But, it paved the way for me to write another blog, and this little space here has kept me interested in the game and the community when all else has failed.

And, of course, I have met all of you – so many wonderful readers and commenters, all with such a wide ranging depth of knowledge and experience.

/end sop.  Yeah, I was just in one of those moods.

1.  Brain is empty.

2.  All the Blizzcon news has been posted, reposted, regurgitated and posted again, and then splattered ALL over the internet.

3.  Stress!  ALL my Year 12 students failed their exams!  STRESS!!

4.  Seriously.  Brain is empty.  I open Live Writer.  The screen glares at me in an accusatory ‘So where the hell have you been, Missy?’ manner while my brain frantically tries to think of something to say.  All that appears on the screen are the words ‘green fire’.  REPEATEDLY.

5.  Too busy flirting and causing general mayhem.

6.  Mother and grandmother coming to visit soon.  Eeeep!

greenfiregreenfiregreenfiregreenfiregreenfiregreenfire…. ahem

7.  WoW and I have not been getting along as of late.  My computer is getting revenge for my trip away.

8.  Trying to scheme ways out of jury duty.  It’s not working. 

9.  Reports are due.  AGAIN.

10.  Did I mention ‘Stress’?!?!?!

Will have real post, possibly about Soul Shards, soon.  When the brain comes out of retirement. <3

Yet Another Destructive Reach Community Service Announcement.  Brought to you by the Imp Credit Union – where your money is ALWAYS in safe (albeit firey) hands

So, I heard through the ever-delightful Syrana that WoW.com is looking for a brand spankin’ (emphasis on the spank!) new shiny Warlock Blogger to write their Blood Pact column.  Now, I figure that surely MOST of you guys are Warlocks (or hey, why else would you be here?), and you surely must know a little something about the class.  If those two very basic things apply to you (ie – Warlock, and know something about them), you should consider heading on over to throw your hat (or imp, if you have an attachment to your hat) in the ring!

As for me?

Well…

I kinda suck at research.  I really suck at deadlines.  I have a job that is so demanding that I have difficulty keeping this place up and running, as well as looking after Blog Azeroth stuffs and Shared Topics and what not.  Seriously… it would be a bad idea.

Does that mean that I didn’t consider it for a split second?

Are you fricking kidding?  Of COURSE I considered it!  If you look at all the stuff I write, what seems to be the common element?  (Hint: it ain’t Warlocks.)  I love making people angry.  I love stirring up trouble.  I love being able to inspire irrational hatred and fear in people (wow… am I a Warlock or a politician?)

What better place to attract angry people and piss off the masses than writing for WoW.com?  It’s like my dream job!  Not to mention the fame, fortune, and other stuff involved (… I suspect there is actually no fame, or fortune…. but the other stuff could be shiny).

But, since one must be practical in both their assessment of their ability (in every sense of the word) to do a job… I decided it wasn’t for me.  Let’s face it – I kinda suck at this whole blogging mumbo-jumbo.

However, it might be for you!

Head on over and take a look!

So, after browsing around a little, I have noticed that the Ferarro thing has caused massive amounts of controversy.  Personally… well, I am always dubious about everything that I see on the internet, so it didn’t really have a huge impact on me (at first).

See, now, I mainly blog about a game here.  Well, I supposedly blog about a game, when I am not blogging about other random crap, just like this.  At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter who I am, so there is no point going into an elaborately crafted lie or deception.  It doesn’t matter what I look like, sound like or do for a living if I want to talk about Warlocks.  I don’t believe the fact that I am a girl, or that I am Australian, or that I am under 30 has gained me any more readers than I would have if I were a 50 year old American male.

My personal blog on the other hand… well, there I DO write under a pseudonym, I don’t have pictures posted of myself, and I don’t talk about any details that might allow people to guess who I am.

To the average person, that might not make sense.  Why hide behind another identity on a blog that is entirely about you, then allow people to know who you are on a blog where that isn’t at all relevant?

The important part is ‘What can people be allowed to know about my life?’  Here, well, you guys know my real name, vaguely where I live, what I do for a living, how old I am, what I look like, what I like to spend my spare time doing, and even what food I enjoy eating.  That sits pretty well with me, because you still don’t quite know enough to do anything too malicious (if you were so inclined) unless you felt like doing a bit of investigating, and the WoW community in general seems to be quite nice (unless you are BBB, and what the hell is up with that shit?)

My other blog, people know… very vaguely where I live (think state), my profession, and the fact that I have a boyfriend, a family and a cat.  They don’t know my name, what town I live in, or what I particularly enjoy doing.  There are no photos of me, and everyone in my life is given a pseudonym.  Why?  Why would I be less concerned about privacy on the busy blog than I am on the quiet, unpublicised one?

It’s what I write about, of course!  My personal blog is where I let out everything… my happiness, sadness, anger, and all that entails.  I talk about stuff that has happened to make me mad.  I talk about people I know.  I talk about the frustrations of my job, my family and my relationships.  I don’t want people I know or prospective employers finding that stuff and being able to associate it with me.  Is there a chance they will?  Sure there is, all it takes is a little bit of tech savvy to work out who owns the damn thing.  The thing is, they have to find it first.

Here, on the other hand, I don’t really talk in depth about my real life.  I don’t bitch about my job or my boyfriend dramas.  I write about a game, and the community associated with that game.  So why would I ever have to lie?

So, what has this got to do with Ferarro?

Admittedly, I first started paying attention to this when I noticed the uncanny similarities between the name of the character and the name of the producer of some of my favourite foods.  I’m generally not one for gossip or drama (I am a pretty boring soul, really), but the ethical dilemmas here intrigued me.  Does a blogger have a responsibility to tell the truth to their audience?  Is using someone’s identity for ‘harmless’ purposes really harmless?  How should we represent ourselves on the internet?

I honestly do not believe a blogger has to be 100% truthful with their audience, especially if they tell fibs in their posts which are not ‘relevant’ or ‘factual’.  So, if I wanted to write a post detailing the amazing time I had on the weekend on my ski trip, I could, and I wouldn’t see anything ethically wrong with that, even though it’s a fib.  That form of post would be purely for entertainment value, and, let’s face it, it would have to be more interesting to read than ‘I spent the weekend huddled in front of the heater*.

However, if I fluffed numbers, or distorted some fundamental part of the game to mislead you, or heck, even misrepresented some form of guild drama, that would be unethical of me.  That is what the core business of this blog is, and to misrepresent that would be as bad as a news site misrepresenting, well… anything they are reporting on (because that totally doesn’t happen, right?)  I wouldn’t trust anything that was written on this blog if it was discovered I lied about something in game.

A sustained lie about an ‘unrelated’ matter, on the other hand, is a little harder to swallow.  A sustained lie where you also steal aspects of another person’s personality?  Well, that’s crossing the boundaries a bit too much for my liking.  Sure, that other person may have put various aspects of their life up on the internet for all to see, however, it doesn’t make it right to take it and use it as your own.  There’s a hell of a lot of me on the internet, and I wouldn’t particularly like it if someone took my likeness and assigned it to their own work.  To be honest, I’d also be baffled as all get out, since I don’t look especially knowledgeable about anything, and spend most of my time looking bemused, confused or abused.

In one of my older posts, I say something about not reading your blog if I think you are an asshat.  You might be a well informed, literate, intelligent asshat, but an asshat you are nonetheless.  While I didn’t actually read Paladin Schmaladin, if I did, I would more than likely now veto the site.  The information is good, but I can not identify with the writer if they have so little that I can trust about them.  Many people say they would still read Ferarro’s work, and that is perfectly fine.  That’s why this is intriguing – it’s not cut and dried.

So, how do you feel about the issue?  How would you feel if I suddenly outed myself to be a 70 year old man from… Tallahassee? (is that even how it’s spelt?)

Edit: P.S:  Yes, I state that I write under a pseudonym on my other blog, and thus imply I don’t here (when in actual fact I DO)… but if you look over into that side bar, under where it says ‘”Buttons, Buttons and More Buttons", my real, honest to goodness, true name is sitting.  Ayup, that’s me.  Ditto with the ‘me’ that is associated with this blog on Facebook (yay for Networked Blogs!)

Blogs.  What the hell is a blog?  What do we expect to see when we read a blog?  What do we expect to –do- when we write a blog?

Right before I went on my so-called sabbatical (which still is kinda happening I guess, I just really wanted to get this out of my system), I was discussing a lot of this with the venerable Leafy.  Interestingly (probably thanks to the sudden drop off of blogs from the blogosphere), both Matticus and Lassirra have posted this week about how to blog, how to get big numbers, and how to be successful and interesting (or, at the very least, how to not ‘suck’).  Now, I am going to be big and brave (knowing that I am going to be crawling back into my hole very very soon) and talk about my take on ‘how to blog’. 

I don’t necessarily agree with every single point that both of these intelligent, far more successful bloggers than I make.  Some points I nod my head at frantically, others I outright disagree with.  However, that is what makes blogging so wonderful – it’s a way for people to communicate with each other and discuss things.  You are allowed to disagree – contrary to popular belief, NO ONE is marking you on your blog, you can not ‘fail’, and at the end of the day, someone out there will appreciate what you write.

Wait, but I thought I was only blogging for myself?

Well, to be honest, I think that is how many of us start out.  I know that part of the reason I started blogging was that I enjoyed writing.  Then I started vlogging because I also enjoy talking.  However, I also started because the small part of me known as my ego wanted other people to read what I had to say, and to comment on it.  I wanted to have the discussions about Warlock stuff that I really wasn’t able to get anywhere else. 

I also wanted to be a part of that awesome secret club.  I’ll admit it, even if no one else will.  I read quite a few WoW blogs before I started writing.  I started to notice that these guys kinda talk to each other!  Wow!  I was just so impressed and amazed and jealous all at once that all these wonderful, highly intelligent and creative people would discuss WoW both in and out of their blogs.  They would cross link, they would have conversations with each other, all sorts of wonderful things.  I desperately wanted in, being somewhat starved of WoW discussion.  I have heard things are dramatically different in the US, but here in Australia, the general rule seems to be if you talk about WoW, people look at you like you have two heads.

So, get to the point Sar… How can I be a good blogger?

Well, my very first tip is to forget all the bloody rules.  Sure, read them, think about them, pay attention to them… but if they don’t fit with your personal philosophy and style, then don’t follow them!

Some things clearly are basics that we should all follow.  Having an RSS feed is a good example of a basic thing all blogs should have.  Watching that your spelling and grammar are mostly correct is probably another.  However, once people start telling you what you should and shouldn’t be writing about, take everything they say with a grain of salt.  Everyone has their own reasons for blogging, their own things that they do and do not like to read about, and nuts to those who don’t want to read what you enjoy reading!

I find that, on my blog, I basically write how I speak.  This means that I do break a lot of the rules regarding grammar and punctuation.  I use FAR too many ellipsis’s (BTW, that is totally incorrect, but it’s one of those words that is so rarely pluralised), frequently followed by too many brackets, and finished off nicely with far too many exclamation marks.  I often invert the order of words, because I am also a stream of consciousness writer, and just write as I think.  This means I waffle all over the place, and if I was marking the stuff I write here, I would totally be putting (#) all over the shop!  However, this approach works for me, and if I try to write any other way, I feel stifled and uncomfortable.  Think writing a high school paper all over again.  I had a teacher who used to mark by liberally scattering ‘BAD!!!’ over papers… *shudder*.  Who the hell wants to feel like that when they are blogging?

Be thoughtful, but don’t take yourself too seriously!

Are you making money out of this little venture?  More specifically, are you making a profit?  I know I sure as hell am not (although I also have a feeling akin to anathema when it comes to advertisements, but that’s merely my personal beef).  So why would you treat blogging like a job?

Blogging, first and foremost, is meant to be an enjoyable experience.  There is nothing fun in the minds of most people about tearing your hair out over a post because it isn’t serious enough, or meaningful enough, or isn’t going to cause people to turn their existence upside down and go ‘Why the hell have I been living my life like this for so long?’  At best, I figure some of my posts may have encouraged someone to say ‘Hell, Destruction sounds kinda fun.  I am going to go and crap all over some Mages’.  At worst, people think I am a raving idiot.  Either way, 200 or so people must find something about me fun (I think Kag suspects it’s because I have ‘bewbs’).

My favourite posts that I have written (yes, I AM that lame, I do occasionally enjoy reading my own work) are generally off the cuff entertaining pieces of total drivel.  Oddly enough, they also generally get more views than others.  Clearly, you people are all sick enough to enjoy this crap as well, regardless of what people say.

Subheadings that are chocolate make sense are good like chocolate

Lass did address this in her post, and I have to agree on this one.  Make your posts scannable people!  Especially if you are like me and have diarrhoea of the mouth/fingers/whatever the hell you blog with.  I am SURE that people don’t read every word I write.  I don’t read every word other people write generally.  I don’t always have the time, or the patience, or… well, let’s just say I am lazy and can’t be assed.  Use subheadings, use bold, underlining, and italics where appropriate.  Make sure your subheadings are not like mine and actually relate to the crap that goes underneath them.  Alternatively, mention chocolate, and I shall read.

Guides and Analysis are not the be all and end all

Yes, guides get you exposure.  They get you link love on places like WoW Insider (which then kills your server, and you spend the rest of the day cursing those incoming links!), they get you google hits, they get you all that shiny stuff you are –supposed- to care about.

Thing is… they don’t always get you return visitors or subscribers.  People who look for a guide for something are looking for precisely that – a guide for a specific something.  If you only write guides, people are going to get mighty sick of reading them.  Guides, well… are boring a lot of the time.  I am in the process of unsubscribing from people who write guides and analysis and little else, because, frankly, your work (while I admire the effort, time, and dedication it takes to write all that) is boring as all fuck to me.

Why will I personally subscribe to you?

a) I know you (so, that’s a whole 5 people out of the way)

b) You make me laugh

c) You make me think

d) You write about Warlocks

Warlocks are right at the bottom of the list.  Why?  Warlocks make up maybe 1% of the stuff I read.  Most of the blogs I enjoy I read because I feel like I am interested in what that person has to say.  I’ll bet my bottom dollar (and I am at about that point!) most people are the same.  It goes the other way as well.  If I think you are a pretentious git, I won’t read your blog.  I don’t give a rat’s if you write good posts, you are a pretentious git and I just.  don’t.  like.  you.

Doesn’t matter what you say, just say it WELL

Let your personality into your blog!  Many people advise against writing ‘I killed x, I got y’ posts… but I say go for it!  That is… as long as you do it well.  Turn it into an epic adventure.  Say how much fun (or unfun) you had while doing it.  Explain why the hell that piece of gear means so much to you as to make it blogworthy.  I love revelling in others happiness (or misery, as the case may be) when they talk about it in an entertaining manner.

(To be fair, Lass does qualify her statement on the matter with basically this same message, I just wanted to state this in a more positive light)

Don’t beat the holy hell out of yourself

Everyone has an off day.  Doesn’t mean you failed as a blogger.  I remember when I first started I would feel immensely guilty if I took a day off from blogging.  Then later on I’d feel bad if I didn’t write anything good (which, by the way, how do you measure ‘good’?)  Finally, I just felt bad all the god damn time.  It didn’t help that I was being pounded from all sides with messages about ‘this type of blogging is bad!  That type of blogging is bad!’  Blogger’s guilt is real people. 

Also… don’t assume that no one really enjoys what you write.  As a reading community, we can be lax when it comes to leaving comments.  I hardly ever comment, and I really should make the effort to.  I always assumed that I was not an especially popular blog, and didn’t think I had readers who really enjoyed reading what I had to say.  Well, when I announced my break, lo and behold, it turns out I have people who like me!  Squee!

Linked to this, of course, is…

Write when you want to and how you want to

Forcing yourself into a set schedule of writing, while advised by many, invariably leads to blogging becoming a chore rather than a hobby.  Write when the muse strikes.  Sure, aim to write once a week or something, especially when you are beginning and don’t have a readership yet.  Don’t feel forced to write total shite though so you have posted.  While Matt says it is difficult to judge what is quality and what is not, I am afraid that, some days, I know that I am just pumping out crap to fill some space.  This isn’t radio people, there is no such thing as ‘dead air’… don’t feel forced to fill a void.

Lass comments on memes.  Memes are an interesting quirk of blogging… I personally don’t do a stack of them, but I enjoy reading them, and I do enjoy writing them when I am lucky enough to be tagged by someone.  Do I enjoy them because I am a blogger?  Possibly.  Some people will enjoy some of your posts, others will enjoy others.  No one has a 100% success rate with all their readers, and you would be lucky to have that with even one reader.

Ignore everything I said above if you don’t like it!

Blogging is an intensely personal experience.  You are sharing YOUR thoughts with the world, you should do it how YOU want.  Who says I am the authority on this stuff?  Absolutely no one.  As I said, people with bigger subscriber bases and much more intellect/skill/time disagree with a lot of my ideas.  Write about what you want, when you want, and how you want.  Reach out to other bloggers, link to their stuff (intelligently, I might add!), comment on their stuff (also intelligently), and don’t make an obnoxious bee’s behind of yourself in the community.