She Likes Me Back!

A while back I mentioned my blog-crush, Scarlet Panda? Well she apparently noticed me stalking her blog on her site-meter, and found my blog! She commented on my post and referred me back! It’s so sweet! As a result, over the past few days, I have had more than usual visitors, largely due to the link from her blog.

I was explaining this to our houseguest-Eric, who is a writer as well as an actor, and he asked me, "Doesn't it make you nervous, when you sit down to write, to have an audience?"

And I said “Pshaw. Of course not! That’s why a blog is good for you, it’s like doing improv, or open mics if you’re an actor. You practice just putting something out there on a regular basis, regardless of who’s out there, and it makes you better.”

He said, “Gee, that’s brave. How many people read your blog each day?”

“Um. Four….and, well, actually one of those is me.”

Yesterday my average readership was up to five. And today, sitting down to write I’ve found out he’s right. I do have a bit of stage fright.

Which has made me consider audience, and the whole blog habit I’ve developed, and why. I started this blog as a way to communicate with friends and family, as an alternate to with periodic newsletters, as was my habit when we lived overseas. I liked the idea of them a “virtual space” where they could visit at their leisure. I have found however, that even those people who responded positively to receiving emails, did not make the switch to blog-space.

So what is it I’m writing now, and why? Am I giving updates of my everyday life in terms that would appeal to my parents, aunts, uncles etc? No. That would hardly make sense. Am I, as I reflexively answered Eric, writing for “practice?” That rings false. I don’t think I ever thought that before I said it. Am I writing for myself? Certainly I feel compelled to come to the page and write, but if it’s just for myself, why do I visit my blog instead of my journal?

Most of my regular readers are friends I had before, but not ones with whom I had a steady individual correspondence. They are people who already had an online social network. It’s part of their paradigm. Since I’ve started “hanging around” blog type people, have I started to adjust my posts, to expound upon random thoughts in a way that could be read by the general public, or general public of blog-surfers?

I think it’s possible. It’s probable. Certainly I am puzzling out my own thoughts, I am writing for people who know me, but I am also “performing” for an audience.

I would give my opinion on this, but I don’t know what it is yet.