Blogging The Black Dog

May 27, 2009

By Patrick.

Meta

We have a number of bloggers who read these pages. This question, and it’s a legitimate question, not a rhetorical one, is directed primarily to them, though comments from others are appreciated.

What keeps you doing it? How do you motivate yourself to post day after day? How does a Walter Olson, who is about to celebrate his 10th anniversary as a blogger, and maintains one of the oldest blogs on the web, keep doing it? How does a Patterico, who’s also getting rather long in the tooth, keep doing it?

I go through phases in blogging and in internet activity generally. Sometimes, usually in fact, I’m enthusiastic for the hobby, and sometimes everything is perfect. I write something that I think (and ultimately my opinion is the only one that matters, though I appreciate and enjoy good comment discussions) hits on all cylinders.

But at other times I can’t think of a word to say. Sometimes I just participate in comments at other folks’ blogs. Sometimes work takes me away. Sometimes, in a misguided attempt to recover the initial enthusiasm, I start my own site. I thought my last attempt was a good one, but ultimately it was doomed to fail. So I returned to blogging “full-time” here.

Which isn’t to dismiss my co-bloggers here, principally Ken and Ezra, but including a number of other friends who, for one reason or another, don’t often post. And including Charles, our newest author, who I wish would post more often, as I’ve enjoyed his output here. I like each and every co-author at Popehat, some of whom I’ve met, and think that a group blog is ultimately a better environment for me. I’m glad to write here, and enjoy reading what my fellow authors post more than what I write myself.

But currently I’m going though one of my phases. If it weren’t for my co-authors, this site would be on the verge of shutting down. I pre-wrote and pre-scheduled my last post, which was a trifle about “Towel Day,” weeks before it appeared. And sometimes, maybe most of the time, what I write is filler.

I write the filler because I recognize that blog needs new content, preferably every day, to keep moving forward. And I want the blog to move forward, because in one of the rare weeks when I have a post that I think is a big hit, I want people to read it. I also write it because I enjoy discussing it with our commenters, whom I quite like, more sometimes than I enjoy writing it.

Unlike some bloggers, who get to appear on tv or radio, who have some small trace of actual political power, or who must enjoy some decent income for plugging stuff on commercial websites, we’re not seeking attention (and of course, in my case, I’m nowhere near as good at it as they are). We don’t post using our last names. We’re just in it for discussion and the small narcissistic thrill that comes from a good comment or a link.

So how does one remain a full-time, part-time blogger? How does one avoid the fate of the blogs mentioned at One Post Wonder, which itself now appears to be almost dead?

Last 5 posts by Patrick

Don't Lose That Famous Temper, Bob. - September 2nd, 2010
How To Raise A Great Sailor - August 30th, 2010
Habeas Corpus Shouldn't Mean "Tag! You're It!" - August 26th, 2010
Activist Judges Seek To KILL US ALL! But That's Just The Start. - August 23rd, 2010
FIFTY THOUSAND CRONKITES?!? - August 21st, 2010

17 Comments

15 Comments

Mark • May 27, 2009 @11:10 am

I can’t figure out how to avoid the black dog in my paying work, so I guess I’m not help to you. It seems to me that trying to force yourself to write could be a bad way to go.
Mark • May 27, 2009 @11:23 am

Holy cow, my previous comment is borderline incoherent. Apologies. I don’t know what happened. Forgive me if I spam your comments by trying again.

It’s difficult enough to avoid the black dog in your primary vocation. Treating a blog like a second career seems to me like a sure-fire way to suck the joy right out of it. A little bit of a break from frequent posting might be exactly what you need to restore your energy. In the meantime, Ken, Ezra, Charles, Grandy, et al. can probably pick up your slack.
Charles • May 27, 2009 @11:29 am

I think a group blog is the best context for me. I usually lack the energy to write something well even about issues I care about.
Mike • May 27, 2009 @11:49 am

My first post was in March, ’04, though I went on hiatus for a while. My blog’s focus (and authorship) has changed a lot over the years. I keep doing it because I feel a compulsion to discuss certain things.

My blog would actually be 50% better if I weren’t so introverted and didn’t have such an idyllic employment arrangement. I’ll have time to take my dog for a 60 minute walk first thing in the morning. So I’ll think of an issue that would make an interesting post; and then resolve the issue before returning home. Happily introverted, I now feel no need to raise the issue on the blog.

When I’m chained to a desk and thus don’t have time for long walks, I blog more because I don’t have the time to resolve the issues internally. So I throw something out there.

With Olson and the other guys, it’s a passion for a subject. Plus, there is always something new. So you can’t really develop “mastery” of current affairs; since it always changes.

I blogged on Section 1983 issues for years. The problem is that I now know everything there is to no about it. The law doesn’t change – except that it gets marginally worse for plaintiffs each year. So I really don’t feel compelled to post on Section 1983 issues much anymore. There is no spark.

As Hume would probably say: Blogging always follows emotion. If there is no emotion, there is no blog.

Thus, your desire to blog (or not blog) could probably be correlated with your moods and hormone levels. If we tracked serotonin and testosterone levels in your body, we’d probably see more posts on high neurotransmitter and hormone days; and fewer posts on lower days.

I’m betting most long-time bloggers like Wally Olson have high levels of excitability. If you took an MRI of their brains while blogging, it’s look much different from the average blogger’s brain.
Andrew • May 27, 2009 @12:33 pm

As an avid consumer, but not a creator, of online content, I agree that frequent updates are critical to a blog’s long-term success. I’d estimate, based on no evidence whatsoever, that in order to cultivate a strong and steady audience, a non-professional group blog like this should be updated 2-4 times daily on average, slowing down to no less than once daily during slow periods.

My only recommendations (which are probably not news to you) would be:

1) Coordinate among the Popehat bloggers so that the others step up their output when one of you enters a blogging drought.

2) Periodically host guest bloggers — fellow-thinkers, antagonists, significant others, syphilis-ridden hobos. As long as they’re good writers.

3) Institute a daily lolcatz post.

Maybe skip that last one.
Gideon • May 27, 2009 @1:24 pm

I don’t blog anymore. I just vomit nonsense out onto the “virtual paper”.
Jack • May 27, 2009 @7:30 pm

This post hit home for me. I’m also a part time blogger on a libertarian oriented group blog (also one of Kip’s “Elite Eleven”), and I run seriously hot and cold. To answer your question: I don’t sweat it. We have half a dozen+ writers with highly varied posting frequencies, so I always know that the blogging is getting done.

I run into the problem of not feeling like I have anything particularly insightful to contribute. Nothing that hasn’t been said better by many others, so whats the point. But then, some relevant news item will catch my eye, and I will realize either that I DO have some insightful commentary based upon rare, if not unique, experience, or at least I am motivated enough to research and aggregate some reasonably definsible paragraphs.

So don’t sweat it, your cobloggers probably have you covered during your black dog.
Brian Dunbar • May 27, 2009 @7:38 pm

What keeps me going?

For me, at this point, blogging is a hobby. Some guys go out in the garage and do stuff with wood or fix up cars. My grandpa gardened in the summer and built model boats in the winter. I write crap and post it on a blog.

What keeps me going.

Man, I just do that sucker. Might as well ask a monkey why he scratches.

Some days I’m busy, some days I don’t feel like it: nobody is paying me. Some days I sit down and make myself come up with something – I look at the text file of notes and find an old picture or dumb joke and post that sucker.
David • May 27, 2009 @10:43 pm

I neglect the blogging that I’d like to do, and fail to type the ephemera that I write in my mind in passing, because my day to day schedule and the three or four big things I have to do on top of it are completely dominating me this season. It’s irksome, since I enjoy writing much more than I enjoy at least half of what’s taking up my time. Alas.
Grandy • May 28, 2009 @5:24 am

I can’t take up the slack for anyone, because I am inept, and it’s important we remember this in any discussions going forward. I actually tried to blog about sports several years back (this is a dirty secret I have kept well hidden), basically when the college football blogsphere was on the verge of exploding. What I discovered is that I’m no good at it. Writing is a difficult process for me, and engaging in it simultaneously enhances my own well-cultivated self loathing but prevents me from enjoying that same self loathing like I normally do (being a sadist and all that).

A good friend who blogs on sports somewhat infrequently (at Braves & Birds) has asked me to join on with him but I won’t do it for the same reasons I rarely post here, even though his blog covers the only subjects I can arguably speak of with any coherence and authority outside of computer games (that being, Atlanta Sports teams, UGA athletics). That level of coherence and authority is tenuous, even fleeting, but it’s still more than I can muster for most other subjects.

I suppose it’s a little absurd (this pleases me) that a person who doesn’t write can get some sort of block (beyond motivational/fear/whatever issues), but there it is. At times when I have tried to sit down and write something (usually with a vague idea of something I want to write about, which doesn’t happen all that often), I stare at a blank screen into the very depths of nothing, and verily nothing looks back and that’s that.

I feel a level of guilt about all of this because the people who do contribute actively here are doing quality work.
Professor Coldheart • May 28, 2009 @6:21 am

(1) Have a regular feature that you can tap into to create some instant content. In my case, the “media blow”: a string of one-paragraph reviews of anything I’ve read or watched recently.

(2) Never be afraid to simply post a string of interesting links.

(3) Start to view going a day without posting as a moral / professional failure (WARNING: not advised).
Ken • May 28, 2009 @12:33 pm

I’ve just had to try to teach myself not to get upset because some inane post I spent 45 seconds on gets lots of attention, but something I spent lots of time on and would like to discuss is ignored.
Gideon • May 28, 2009 @3:00 pm

Ken,

I’ve had to do the same thing. Some of the silliest of throwaway posts I write get the most comments, while the most researched and thorough legal posts get nary a second look.
John Kindley • May 28, 2009 @3:35 pm

The question of motivation is intensified for the beginning blogger, as I am. While many of us and even many popular bloggers like to think they “write for themselves,” critics be damned, the popular bloggers certainly have a motivational advantage, in that it’s difficult to get up the gumption to spend a significant amount of time writing something substantial if you know hardly anyone’s going to read it. A solution I hit on in my previous blog was to make my blog kind of an index of my commentary on other (popular) blogs. I’m a long time commenter on various blogs, and commenting, unlike blogging, comes much more naturally. None of that self-imposed pressure to produce, to create something out of nothing. A blogger writes something that catches your fancy, and you kind of just piggyback on it. No planning, no sweating over the details that characterizes my effort to post something on my own blog. (This comment itself typifies that; it may not be profound, but the post caught my attention and the comment just naturally followed in a matter of minutes.) Blogging isn’t all that more elevated than “commenting.” The blogger himself is typically “commenting” on something somebody else said. By making my blog an index of my comments on other blogs, blogs that unlike my own people are likely to read, I’m basically doing what I’d do anyway without as much risk of throwing away time and effort. And there’s always a chance (however remote) that over time the blogging commenter may gain a readership of his own. If not, not too much lost.
Kevin Underhill • Jun 2, 2009 @2:23 pm

Medication?

Seriously (that was only half serious), I don’t know the answer to this, beyond maybe developing good writing habits before it starts to seem like “work.” I somehow managed to do this early on. One thing that works for me is to try to get several posts done on the weekend, and then setting them to auto-publish once a day all week. Then if on any particular day you just don’t feel like it, something has been posted anyway that you wrote on a day when you did. Then you can skip a day without feeling too guilty.

Also, if feedback helps, I will just say that in my opinion, this is an excellent blog and I hope you keep it going, and I say that as a pseudo-quasi-competitor who is also trying to write law-related humor and so should have a tendency to hate anybody else who is good at it. And this is good stuff. As long as you still enjoy it, please keep cranking it out.