5. What does blogging mean to you?

Is it a place where you can freely express yourself, a place to release stress, etc?

Blogging is a way for me to express my literary aspirations. I think of blogging as a writing exercise. It is like writing a freelance article, where I have a weekly self-imposed deadline. It is weird because even though it’s not like I’m required to generate posts, I feel a very real pressure to finish one every week. I guess it was easier when there was no one reading my blog. But now that I have some semblance of a readership, it creates pressure for me to write.

I often think that real writers or journalists, especially ones who have a byline in a newspaper feel the same way, so in a way I feel that it is kind of like training for me. That maybe one day I could parlay this into a journalistic career.

I don’t think that it releases stress for me at all. I think that maybe for some other bloggers who view blogging as recreation, this is the case, but not for me. It’s too stressful. I wonder if Hot Abercrombie Chick, who has a large readership and writes about her philosophical views feels the same way.

There are about forty people who link to my blog directly. This is a statistic from Technorati and other similar tools. Just about the size of a high school classroom. You don’t know how forty plus people can make you lose sleep over whether or not your posts are funny or strikes a chord. It’s like standing in front of class reading your book report, with a t-shirt that says “I’m funny” on it. It’s an invitation for ridicule. Or a wedgie.


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