Honest Blogging

I've always made a point of being completely honest on my blog. Right from day one, post one, I made sure what I wrote was the truth. That still stands and after five and a half years of blogging I want you to be truthful with me. I've no intention of giving up on the blog, nor have I thought about taking a break, but I'm starting to get a little disheartened by the fact that I don't feel as motivated to blog anymore. I read and comment on so many blogs but recently life has simply got in the way. People say don't give up, take a break, and I tell myself often that blogging isn't the bee-all and end-all to my life's interests, not to mention that it's nowhere near as personal as it once was. Perhaps I want it to go back to how it used to be, the days before Twitter links and Facebook promotions, advertising yourself at every available opportunity, feeling a need to have your blog in ranks, lists, retweeted, linked to, included in the Top this and Top that. It all gets very tiring. There are so many interactive platforms around today that it's impossible to keep up. And if there's one circle of blogging pals in particular that are all involved with a certain platform, like Google+ for example, a platform I really don't understand or can fathom out, then this is bound to mean you're missing out.

Building a blog from scratch takes hard work, back-breakingly hard work actually. It takes months and sometimes years to establish a blog in a community and with the amount of blogs around today it's inevitable that some blogs won't get a look in. I've enjoyed five years of interaction and in that time I've joined Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and several other platforms. But I'm really not sure it's made a difference. I'm proud to be included in lists, that means I've achieved something. I'm also proud to be a part of online communities, mainly because I've met some very nice people. Still, part of me often wants to turn the blogging clock back to the days when blogging was simpler. I've been competitive in my life but even I, as naive as I am, do realise that if the competition is vast enough, the chances of staying in the big pond become remote. I'm not going to stop swimming. But please join me for a front crawl now and then, back stroke really isn't my thing.