Excuses, excuses.
Saturday, January 19th, 2002
This site and its lack of new entries has become the perfect example of two things.
One: the longer you let something go, the harder it is to face. I find this applies to writing letters, getting in touch with people you haven’t contacted in a long time – and updating websites. The longer a silence stretches out, the more powerful it becomes and the harder it is to tackle and, ultimately, to break. The silence at WordRidden has become deafening in the past few months. It’s a silence that’s been roaring in my ears for weeks on end, reminding me day in and day out that it needs to be filled up with the clickety-clack of me typing an entry for my site.
Which leads me to the second thing: as soon as I feel obligated to do something, I absolutely don’t want to do it. I have a very tough streak of contrariness about me. I don’t like being told what to do, and I hate being reminded of things that I already know I have to do but which I am avoiding for one reason or another. I have, in fact, been known to deliberately not do things I have been reminded to do – just out of spite (sometimes I’m not a very pleasant person). While Jeremy has long since given up reminding me that WordRidden hasn’t been updated since what is technically “last year,” my conscience has persisted in niggling at me. And as the feeling of obligation to this site and its readers has grown, so has my perverse unwillingness to live up to this obligation.
It’s not that I don’t want to write, or that I wish there wasn’t anyone out there reading what I write. I admit that before anyone had found the site, back when I was really just writing for myself, I found it all a lot easier. But as soon as I had gained a tiny bit of recognition and gathered a very small but very dedicated readership, things felt different. The pressure was on. If I want to keep people reading (which I do, of course), I have to deliver the goods. And because I’m a perfectionist, I can’t just throw any old thing on to the site and feel good about it. I think that if people are going to take the time to come to my site and read what I’ve written, then I’d better be writing something that makes it worthwhile. Which has lead to me to not write anything at all. Perverse indeed.
Anyway, I’m hoping that all of this will change. WordRidden is going to change. After watching the transformation of Jeremy’s site, I have been won over to the idea of doing something along the lines of a “blog.” I just don’t have the time or energy to pound out long entries on a regular basis (I have absolutely no idea how James Lileks does it – the man has my undying admiration). On the other hand, there are times when I would just like to comment on this or that, even if it’s just to say something like, “Saw The Lord of the Rings and it was amazing” – which, incidentally, I did (twice so far), and which it was. But one sentence does not a journal entry make.
So a blog it will be. All the old stuff will still be here, and I will still write longer, in-depth things when the spirit moves me. I’m just hoping that if I don’t feel obligated to write War and Peace all over again every time I want to update WordRidden, the updates will come more often. This is the plan, anyway.
Bear with me, guys.
Comments
Add a comment