Thanks all for the thoughtful and generous comments on my last (excessively long) post about blogging. I made a concerted effort this week and stayed off the blog (with one late night exception) to think things over and wanted to respond (again, excessively) to the comments that most hit on what I’ve been thinking.
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On the time thing: Blogging for me (mostly) hasn’t been a time drain. I tended to blog at night, after I’d given up writing for the evening so it just replaced Seinfeld. The problem remains that blogging is viewed as a waste of time, despite my empirical evidence to the contrary. One commenter alluded to “the folks who think that assistant professors ought not to have any leisure activities,” noting that this is a little silly but that blogging is a highly visible form of leisure activity. I’m not supposed to have leisure time? Have I already killed my tenure case by telling other faculty members that I play a recreational sport?* Thank god at the faculty meeting I said I hadn’t seen Juno yet because I’m too busy. Is Junior considered a leisure time activity? OTOH, if I get some good reviews back from ASR in the next few weeks, I would cease to worry about this almost entirely. Given their acceptance rate, however, I’m not banking on it. In any case, I figure this ship has already sailed — either I’m viewed as serious (or not), the blog can do no more than cement an existing impression.
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On the vulnerability thing: I swear I’m not a drama queen ordinarily but I was overwhelmed last week and feeling over-exposed, vulnerable, and nervous. I found myself obsessing about past posts, taking tongue-in-cheek comments personally, etc, etc. I’m over this now but wonder if this common in the life cycle of bloggers? What’s it about?
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On the ‘making a contribution thing’:Thanks for substantiating my hubris. It’s nice to hear that the blog is helpful to others as it is certainly helpful to me. I’d love to frame it as a public sociology service but think that may be a stretch.
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On the ever-increasing non-bloggable events:Comments tended to coalesce around liking the newbie posts I write and noting that I will be confronted with more and more situations that are just not bloggable. I’m intrigued by the idea of a group newbie blog. The problem with this is: 1) we’ll all cease to be newbies in a year or two and then we’re left with nothing to say (or nothing we can say), and 2) then we all have to worry about not just what we say but also what others say. Thanks also to the general crim people for the generous invitation to join — I would have but I’m about to start contributing to a public crim blog under my own name.**
In the end, I’ve decided to keep it up, be very careful, not put pressure on myself to post every day, and allow the more public/substantive blogging to slowly take over. Thanks all for the advice and input — back to business this week and no more (or at least, minimal) insecure navel-gazing.
I’m glad your sticking around even if it is occasional. Again, congrats on the public crim blog!