Writer, Table For One
Hey, Rodney. What happened?
Steve is someone I work with. I work in computers. Steve works in computers. We sit near each other. We’ve become friends, bonding over discussions of our scouting activities, tales of families and sharing the same faith. We also have blogs in common, as I was reminded of yesterday. Steve doesn’t write a blog, he reads them. . .including mine.
It’s a cliche to say that writing is a lonely activity. I have friends who are professional writers. They love to go to conventions and book signings and meet their fans. But, even they admit that much of writing is the writer and a keyboard. As a blogger, I don’t go to conventions. I occasionally do interviews, but that’s me defining the content of my blog, but not defining the readership.
I’m constantly amazed when people mention my blog.
Hey, I loved that thing you wrote about motivation.
How’s your car? Sounds like you had some more issues.
Where was your blog this morning?
That’s not the comment that I want to hear. Well, I do appreciate people reading and finding out they look forward to reading it is humbling. But, finding out that they were planning to read it first thing in the morning and it wasn’t there, is not what I like to hear.
When I set out to write this blog, I wanted to write for people like me, white-color guys who go to an office Monday through Friday. It’s why the blog doesn’t update on weekends. And don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled that people from many different walks of life enjoy the scribblings I throw up here five days per week. Targeting office workers, I set 7:00AM as my post time. I use WordPress and it lets me schedule posts. And for a long time, I was good about writing the posts the night before, setting the timer and then going to bed.
I got out of the habit. Steve reminded me of it, without actually knowing what my publishing schedule was. He just knew that at the start of the day, after he read his business sites my site was not updated. I’m not even sure he read the article I posted yesterday about Ray Tomlinson, the inventer of email. I didn’t post it until hours later when Steve was busy in meetings and his normal job duties.
It was another reminder that while a writer may sit alone at a table for one, there are others, sometimes a few sometimes a lot, but at least one, who are waiting for him to deliver on his promise. That’s the deal a writer makes with an audience, especially a blogger who puts up content frequently. The writer promises to write and the readers promise to read. If readers cannot find the content when they want to consume it, when they expect to consume it, the writer has failed in keeping up his end of the bargain.
It was a good reminder. Thanks, Steve. This one is up a t 7:00AM.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday at 7:00 AM Mountain Time. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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