2/09/2011

"Metablogging" or "When to Kill a Blog"

I am so glad that I married a computer nerd. Last night, we spent several hours working on my blog.

My new blog.

I am a one-blog woman. I can't have multiple blogs that I keep up. I just can't. I know this because my blogger dashboard has something like 13. Don't worry, they aren't all supposed to be daily-updated type blogs; some of them are just me saving the name for someday-but-not-today. Some are group blogs that are no longer in existence. And some are finished blogs.

What in the heck is a "finished blog"?

Obviously, a travel blog is "finished" when you get home. Or some time after you get home, as was my case, since I wanted to include the first little bit of major culture shock.

But this blog? When will it be done?

The fact is, I don't listen to "This American Life" anymore because the last 3 times I tried to, it was always either extremely dirty, or worse: extremely negative about marriage. Okay, maybe it's not worse, but I can't tolerate either. So why would I want my blog to be named after it? Besides, the person who introduced that NPR show to me is no longer important to me at all.

Anyway, reading this article completely changed my attitude about blogging. How? It highlights "typical mormon mommy bloggers." Wanting to know what that is, I subscribed to all the blogs she mentioned in the article. The past few weeks reading them, I have figured out this one thing:

I want my blog to be more like theirs.

Short daily posts, lots of pictures, lots of happines, lots more about the mundaneness of life. Starting over with a clean slate seems like a good way to do it.

Besides, on a more practical-usage level, I am getting "wordpress-lust." My original blog was with livejournal, then I graduated to blogger, and now that I've grown up I am becoming a wordpress blogger? From our home server and my own domain? Don't want to bore you with the nerdiness of last night. Let me tell you, Danny and I had a blast working on it together. Again, I will state: I am SO GLAD I married a computer nerd, mainly for the reason that he has just as much or more fun figuring out the technical aspects of blogging, so it is something we can sit down and do together. Secondarily, for the reason that he knows orders of magnitude more about computers than I do, so parsing through RSS XML DNS CNAME ATOM madness is much, much, much, much easier with him around.

The other reason is that my life now is just so, SO different from what it was when I started this blog. I am now a stay-home-mommy. Major life change = major blog change?

What sealed the deal for me was picking up a random Ensign yesterday (to "read" with Jane, which means pointing at pictures and saying, "Look! Jesus!") was when I happened to pick the one with this article. I want my blog to be less ranty, and more lifey.

This blog has been more of a mind-dump. I am not sure if I will keep it active, you know, post here every so often when I build a giant rage about something political or whatever. But let's be honest, I probably won't ever post here again after the 300th post.

Yes, I will soon have reached 300 posts on this blog. That seems like a nice, round number. Good time for change.

Honestly, I'm pretty scared to do this. I love (as in obsess over) my reader stats. I love getting comments. Blogging is a big part of my life. I love writing. I love sharing. I love reading others' blogs. I'm freaked to change to a new blog because I know my readership will go down. But hopefully it will eventually go up? I love being able to say something and feel like other people hear it. Anyway, that Ensign article above clearly stated that even and especially if you don't have thousands of readers, you can make your blog be a wonderful tool for sharing the gospel.

I think the point I get from that is: share your testimony in the small things too, not just the huge, major testimony-building things.

Anyway, more about the new blog later. For now, I am going back to sleep.

9 comments:

  1. Well, you should know that you have at least a few devoted followers-- we'll rebuilding. Also-- you could make a post on this blog with a link to the new one.

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  2. Kate,
    You and Danny need to golf more.

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  3. @Mykle: that's the plan! Except it's not ready yet. If you go there, you will get a big fat empty parking page. Besides, I haven't gotten to 300 posties yet!!

    @Jeremy: does wii golf count?

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  4. I'll still read your blog! And not just because I'm your sister. I never read Joe's or Mykle's blogs... haha! Although I used to look at Joe's photo safari page every now and then.

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  5. Kate I will still read your blog. I like hearing all about your life and thoughts!

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  6. You don't read my blog, Sarah? NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

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  7. @Joe: I may be your only remaining "stereotypical Mormon housewife" reader!

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  8. I'll still read your blog, Kate the Great! love your guts. :)

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