The personal quandary of blogging

Sometimes blogging can be a personal quandary.  What people - bloggers and readers alike - love is straight-from-the-heart, useful and funny stuff.  But the exigencies of making a living - for the blogger and-or the publication - can be a rude headwind for all the joy that blogging promises.

Nicole Knepper

In Blogging: Is monetizing your blog worth the price of your dignity?, Nicole Knepper writes a very thoughtful, wonderful piece that seems to have resolved, if not transcended, that quandary.

Almost ten years ago, I left my career as a professional therapist to become a stay at home mom. Back then I was feeling burned out, isolated and depressed. A friend suggested that I engage in social media, and doing helped to pull me back into the world. Five years ago, I drifted into blogging. There was no plan aside from remaining plan-less. The blog saved my life. That’s not hyperbole. 

It saved me.

It didn’t used to be this way, and in my experience, this kind of thing causes a rift within the various blogging communities, tapping into the greatest fear of a writer – the fear that our words won’t connect us with others, that nobody will care about what we write, that we will be harshly judged, that we simply aren’t good enough.

Today, paid bloggers are constantly under the pressure to prove their worth in order to monetize their blogs. I am one of those bloggers. My boss has to “justify the cost” of keeping me, (his words, not mine) and he can’t do that unless I am generating income for the site in a measurable way. It’s impossible to do that without a community. 

What to do?

Bowing out gracefully seemed like a good plan, really the only plan that would make me happy again. 

“The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men, Gang aft agley, An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain, For promis'd joy!"

Robert Burns – 1785. 

Translation? Even if you have a good plan, there are just no guarantees your plan will succeed or bring you happiness. Plans fail. Plans change. Expect the unexpected and the Gang aft agley (whatever that means).