Editor’s note: The following post isn’t intended to make anyone feel guilty, so please do not take it as such.
Dear modern friends,
There are so many different ways I could back into or skirt around what I want to say, but I’m just going to cut straight to the nitty-gritty: this blogging thing, it’s starting to be not so much fun.
When I started the ol’ Modern Gal blog a year and a half ago, I did so with two intentions: 1. That it become a sort of forum or community for modern gals like myself and 2. It keep me entertained while I worked weird hours and spent hours upon hours on the road away from human contact. After a few months, it took a bit of a personal edge and developed a purpose no. 3 in my life, that being a sort of therapeutical outlet.
Well, it’s pretty much none of those things now.
For the first time in quite some time in my life, I’ve hardly got a care in the world. I mean, I’ve got problems just like everyone, but none of them are weighing me down so much that I need my therapy writing. Happy life is great for the soul but does not make for terribly exciting personal blogging (at least for me), which you may have discovered.
I don’t quite need the entertainment value of my blog anymore because I’m no on the road as much, and I have a legitimate social life. Before, I spent time blogging because I had little else on my random Mondays and Fridays off work while everyone else was busy. Now it’s all I can do to find time to throw up a hardly thought-out post about an article I’ve read.
And because of one of the aforementioned factors or both or some other external force, The Modern Gal appears to have stopped being a forum or community. Despite the fact people are reading — and I know you all are reading, I have a statcounter — no one is commenting. In two days I’ve written three posts and had more than 200 unique visitors to the site and have only gotten a single comment (thank you, dear Courtney) and a single e-mail (love you, Ang!). That is absolutely unheard of here at the MG. I’d like to say I only write for myself, but it’s not true. I’m writing for all you. I really, really, really do want this to be a community, with myself as the Modern Madam. It used to very much be that. But without comments, there’s no interaction, and without interaction, there’s no community.
So what’s a Modern Gal to do? Hiatus? Believe me, I’ve thought about it, and I’m still thinking about it. I think the real problem is we’ve all gotten so busy with our real lives or jobs or our countless blogging projects that we just don’t have the time to put the effort into our community like we once did. Like I said at the beginning — I’m not trying to make anyone feel guilty. I take the blame for the collapse of community here. I realize I let the blog suffer while I was gone a few weeks in a row. I’ve also done a horrible, horrible job of keeping up with all of your blogs (though I’m almost caught up. Vanessa, I’ve saved the best for last). And I’ve been writing pure crap lately that even I wouldn’t electively comment on.
But the burdensome feeling just isn’t what it’s cracked up to be, and I know could be spending my writing time on the novel I’ve been wanting to write for the past four years or sleeping or thinking about boys. BUT, I’m going to give it the ol’ college try one last time.
I’m going to try to kick off a few blogging projects over the next couple of weeks. Maybe a round of Q&As with The Modern Gal, a musical mission or something else. I’m going to do whatever I can think of to engage y’all a bit more and maybe get the community juices flowing a bit on their own.
If that doesn’t work, consider me on hiatus.
In the meantime, I would love, love, LOVE for you to leave me some suggestions or your two cents below. What would you like to see here? What is your favorite thing about the MG blog? What don’t you care for? Do you have any ideas for blogging projects? Am I way off base? Do you have a theory for what’s going on? Is the Hokey Pokey really what it’s all about?
And thanks, as always, for reading.
And I wish we could all get along like we used to in middle school. I wish I could bake a cake filled with rainbows and smiles and everyone would eat and be happy.
C’mon, that movie is awesome.
Yours in blogginess,
The Modern Gal
I’m a big fan of your musical missions… I discover all kinds of groups that should already be in my vernacular. ;o)
Blame April. I am blaming April for everything that is going on in the collapse of the community. It’s too crazy and sociable.
I’ve got nothing for you. For me it really just depends on the day I’m reading blogs. Some days I’m all about commenting and other days I just do a quick scan before moving on to the next one. It realy is this whole being busy and not having time thing. Sorry!
I’ve been slack like a slack thing on commenting recently and i hang my head in bad blogger shame.
I also blame April…stupid end of financial year and and a load of essays to write, but really it’s no excuse and please don’t go on hiatus because i’d miss you (except for your sport posts because i don’t get them, i’m english and easily confused)
I confess to pure laziness, since I read my blogs in Google Reader, I have to click out, go over to the blog, scroll through the post, click on comments and then type.
Perhaps this amount of sloth at what is really not that big a deal explains why I’m back in size 18 pants.
Sigh.
But I do love you — the blog and the girl.
Oh my…you are not alone. I haven’t written a new post for my blog in a month. I read the blogs in my reader and then for whatever reason I have been too lazy to comment. And twitter is just so much easier. I’ll go with the others and blame it on April.
Ha ha. I’m all about getting on the Blame April bandwagon. Screw April!!
Seriously, don’t feel guilty people. I promise that wasn’t my intent. I’m just trying to figure out how we can get the ball rolling and make this fun again.
Aww lady, I’m sorry. I’ve been a terrible commenting friend lately. I’ve noticed the same thing happening around my blog too, people are mysteriously disappearing. I will try harder, I swear! But in the meantime, I very much enjoy your posts.
hell YES you quoted mean girls! if you have sex, you will get chlamydia and die.
anyway, you know I love your blog! and I do more emails than actual commenting just bc sometimes I have personal questions AND stuff I don’t want others to read 🙂 but the modern gal has become as much a part of my morning routine as my tea with splenda and yougurt!
but i understand the busy life…
i can’t wait to see what you have in store for us!
oh my god it’s danny devito! i love your work!
Blame it on April. Everyone else is.
I don’t know. Maybe just take a break. See how it goes. We’ll all still be here when you get back 🙂
Yeah, it is kind of an April thing. I’ve been reading posts on my iPhone lately where it’s a pain in the butt to comment. That’s what I blame. And April.
I love The MG!!! But I totally understand the weight blogging can have and the time it can take away from other things.
For my two cents – I love it when you do personal posts. And also, I don’t understand sports at all because that part of my brain doesn’t work, so I never comment on those posts so I don’t sound stupid.
Lately I’ve found myself having to sit down and decide to comment on posts. The reader has made it waaaay too easy to just breeze through reading.
I wouldn’t be too worried about the last week/two weeks. I know that at least I have been so sad reading all the posts about Maddie and Thalon that I couldn’t muster up the energy to comment on ANYTHING.
Well, you’re getting a lot of comments on this post, so I hope that helps you feel better.
I’m sorry to hear you’re feeling this way, but I do think blogging is kind of cyclical. I know I go through phases where the posts just flow, and other phases where I can’t think of a single thing to write about. I’ll jump on the bandwagon here and blame April for being a bad blogging month.
I love the MG, though (both the person and the blog.) You straddle the line between being personal and informative, and I enjoy a healthy dose of both. I think you are absolutely a forum for Modern Gals and Guys, and I honestly think your blog is unlike any other I’ve read.
No matter what direction you choose to take, as long as you keep writing, I’ll keep reading and commenting.
Thus concludes the longest Modern Comment I’ve ever left.
(P.S. Are you in town this weekend?)
Ok I’m going to buck the trend and not blame April. Here’s the thing. You post a lot. And you post a lot of stuff thats not about your life. So while I find you tube clips and links to magazine articles interesting (and I often click through to reading them) I don’t really have much to say about them (unless they involve Paul Rudd dancing).
I read your blog because I adore reading about YOU, the MG, and even if its about how your mysterious job is infringing on your life (again) or how you had a great time out on the town the draw for me is the person and when there’s less you in the post I have less to interact with.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m obviously still reading and clicking through but I just have less to say about links, etc.
You don’t need drama to make a good blog – you need good writing skills (which you obviously have in spades) and a great personality that shines on the page (again in spades) – thats what I come here for!
Hope that helps!
I just don’t have time to comment anymore. I can barely even read these things, and I’ve unsubscribed from many blogs that just weren’t cutting the mustard.
It seems like we’re reaching a place where a lot of bloggers are hiatusing, and I think the blog communities as we knew them are ending, which is too bad, because this was a great source of real and virtual friends for me.
So the only suggestion I have are short, to the point posts, and hyperlink if you see something good. I almost always click on your Real Simple links, and I don’t comment to say so, because like the people above, I find clicking out of Google Reader to be a pain in the butt, unless a post is unique, funny, or touching enough for me to be moved to say something.
Noelle, thank you for that. I’ve always loved your honesty.
It does kind of stand to reason that if Rocktober is going to, you know, rock, that April will bite.
But overall, blogging is a personal thing and you’ve got to do it for you. You’ve already identified why you started this project, so take a break, and have some fun!
I am horribly remiss and rarely comment on blogs. And I can’t even use google reader as an excuse since I am still old-fashioned and use a favorites list to get my blog reading done! Imagine that, I click right to the blog every day!
I’ve been super-busy with work the last few weeks and my own blog is suffering. But yours is among a core group I read faithfully.
I love your blog, and I like to think of the blogs I read as my distant friends. But lately, I just don’t have comments in me. Recently, I deleted my blog for a multitude of reasons, one being that I felt with the state of my life, I was running out of interesting things to say. I don’t get to take the kids out much anymore, so the tales have dwindled. And then I write posts that I don’t care for.
Perhaps I will find my voice again, but right now, I just don’t feel I have anything good to say or the time to devote to saying it. But I still enjoy reading other blogs, like yours.