I’m an addicted blogger. Even if I don’t post everyday, I find myself jotting down ideas everyday about subjects deserving of a paragraph or two on my blog--most of which stay tucked away in the “ideas” folder on my computer. Danielle knows exactly where they are, and helps herself to them when she’s bored at my house. Here is one of those that I’ve been wanting to write for a while.
As a nervous, novice blogger, I spent an inordinate amount of time formulating comments. (I'm still a novice, but not so nervous anymore.) It takes me a surprisingly long time to formulate a comment because of my many self-imposed requirements that a comment be all of the following: not too short, not too long, clever, coherent, not too many exclamation marks, correctly use capitals and punctuation and reflect that I HAVE been to college, don’t contain the word agaga, etc.
Especially tricky was the issue of responding to comments made on my blog. I wanted to appear as “clever” in my comments as I had (tried to sound) in my entry. (I spend a lot of time rewriting my words so I don’t sound as dumb as I do rattling off stories in real life….the beauty of the written word.) The reason I started a blog in the first place was to better direct my writing from lots of personal emails to friends to more lasting written thoughts and works that would develop my writing skills and be more descriptive and meaningful to look back on. So I chose to spend my time/energy writing new posts instead of trying to construct clever replies to other people’s already witty and fun comments on mine.
But I’ve been rethinking my decision lately.
Reasons to respond to comments:
- To publicly acknowledge the funny and complimentary comments that I privately thrive on (I admit that I save all my blog entries (plus reader comments) as part of my journal.)
- To defend my honor (like when Kim brings up my past obsessions with Saved by the
- To thank anyone who takes the time to read through my ramblings about chocolate, kids, fish, health goals, aspirations, frustrations, and more.
- To increase the number of comments on each entry. (My honesty on this one betrays my vanity.) I am so flattered to have readers (lurking or not).
It is with gratitude for my audience (whoever you may be), and in honor of this being Election Week, that I present my first poll at the top of this page. If you leave a comment, do you expect/hope for/appreciate a responding comment from me, or are you merely stroking my ego?
6 comments:
Does voting on your poll count as a comment? I admit I am a little obsessed with comments, too. Adam would be disgusted.
Hello, what blogger doesn't love comments? I tried, in the beginning, to say I didn't care and that I was just writing it for me anyway. . . . but now I openly admit that I love comments. And I check my blog a million times the day after a new post to see what comments I have gotten! And, in response to your poll, I do usually check comments again to see if there is a response, but I don't usually expect it. I mean, I've never been offended by an author of a post not resopnding to a comment. Blah, blah, blah. I think I've now broken all your comment rules- this is too long, not at all clever, and quite boring. Sorry!
I think everyone who reads a blog should leave a comment. Yes, that's a lot of pressure. But not ALL comments have to be hilarious--it's nice to know who is reading your blog, after all. And the counter is nice to see how many hits you've gotten, but names and words are even better than numbers. Capish?
Danielle-voting counts. And in-person-compliments do, too. You are a huge source of my blogging self-esteem.
Kelly: you don't need rules to govern your comments because you're already funny and insightful. Mine...well, you've seen some on your blog. Yeah, they could use an editor. Have you set your blog up so your comments get emailed to you? That works well for me.
Suzy: yeah, it's disturbing to know when people are checking your blog...especially library boys. Or is ignorance bliss?
I also spend an inordinate amount of time formulating comments. It usually goes like this:
---Spend several minutes trying to get down the exact nuance of what I want to say.
---Realize in a split second (for the umpteenth time) that I'm writing a comment, for pity's sake, and not the Gettysburg's address or a dedicatory prayer.
---Hit publish.
---Immediately come up with something better to say.
It's a problem--especially on blogger where it says "comment deleted" and then it gives the name of the person, so there's no hiding my special compulsions. I also sometimes have to talk myself out of a funk when I don't get any comments on a particular post. I worry that I've been offensive or alienating or (according to Paul) Eeyore-ish, but then I just decide that there was nothing to say to what I had to say.
The end. Sorry for the novel. I'm hitting "publish," and I know I'm going to think of something better to say just 0.0003 seconds after.
Agagaga!!!! ;-D
Lupe's post rings true.
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