Successful Experiment that Failed

I may very well be the only person who has noticed my ever-slowing additions to this blog. And to be completely honest, I originally revamped how I did things here as an experiment. I wanted to find out if a book I read was true – that building an online audience was possible. And on a small scale, it did work. If I would follow the advice of a particular best-selling author, I’m sure I could be as successful as she claims. But here it is: after trying out the whole “build an audience” thing, I realized it really wasn’t my thing.

Starting out, I decided to quit talking about writing only. I’ve got a few writer friends who might read my posts, but reading about writing can be…rather boring. And I know that. So I stopped. Or rather, I significantly reduced my writing-related articles. I still believe that was a wise move. However, my next decision was to blog on a schedule and talk about a wide array of topics to which my readers could relate. So with those goals, I began blogging about things like my cats. Collecting key chains. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Doodling. You know – things that really matter. As long as I could get my three posts a week in, even if it was sharing a silly YouTube video, I felt successful. And my readership did grow.

But after a while, my enthusiasm waned. Not because I didn’t like telling people about my flowers, Mr. Squirrel, or surviving a smoke alarm disaster, but because I was blogging because I had to. And if I didn’t have anything worth writing about, I’d come up with some shallow information – which may have made readers smile, but I was blogging simply to meet my own schedule and to gain that sought-after readership. That was all.

As usual though, I go against the flow, and I don’t like doing things just because other people like it, or just because it’s the “in” thing. And while my pointless rambles might have been enjoyed to a certain degree, they did little to satisfy me. Seems a little selfish, but in all reality, my blog is about me and what I like. And here’s the thing: I like having points. Generally, I can find a spiritual point in just about any situation since God is just that important to me, or at the very least, I can create a life-application out of the simplest story. Writing about peanut butter and jelly? Cute, but what’s the point? That’s what my Facebook page is for.

Blogging lately has become more about what inspires me, and less about staying on schedule. More about what might encourage or enlighten someone, and less about using anything just to check blogging off my to-do list. As I continue down this path, I’ll probably have fewer readers. As the content steers more away from the everyday blather, those who read my posts may know less about my kitties’ adventures and my taste for Doritos, but they’ll probably gain a better understanding of who I really am. And there are those who might not notice a difference at all, and are, at the moment, wondering what on earth I’m talking about. And that’s okay, too.

Don’t worry – I’ll still have life’s silly adventures documented here, I’m sure. And I'm not trying to eliminate the fun tongue-in-cheek  articles that I love to write. But when I’m absent for a while, it’s not because I’ve lost interest. It’s simply because I’m searching for something deeper than Doritos to blog about. I want my readers – however few they may be – to know me, and not just be another number on the chart that shows how many people have read my posts. My initial experiment was a success, no doubt. But numbers don’t define me. So now, I just want to be me, regardless of how big or small my audience is, and focus more on what I like to write about, when I like to write about them.