Why indeed, Darren. Why indeed.

Darren Barefoot's getting lots of link love today for his latest (very funny) meme grenade, but I'm here to tell you all about something else he's working on.

In preparation for his talk at Northern Voice, Darren has posted a short "Why Do You Blog?" survey at, appropriately enough, whydoyoublog.com.

I just filled it out myself and I found it to be very interesting excercise. In the spirit of true confessions, here's my answer to one of the questions. I share it because I think the last bit is a very true and very worthwhile lesson for anyone who's on the fence about keeping their blog alive:

Q: If you've ever stopped blogging for a long period of time, or abandonded a blog, why did you?

I started the blog at the beginning of February 2005. Eleven posts and thirty days later I stopped and didn’t write another post for over a year.

What was going through my head when I decided to quit? There was a little bit of “What do I know and who would want to read it?”, definitely.

And I think I found the freedom of it very appealing on paper but scary in practice. I had worked for years as a writer, doing tech docs and marketing stuff. I was used to going through multiple drafts and reviews before publishing anything. A direct channel to the world made me feel sort of naked and unprotected.

But eventually I started it up again because I felt like I was missing out on connecting with interesting people who were interested in some of the same stuff I was. This turned out to be absolutely true.

Tags: blogs blogging darrenbarefoot northernvoice northernvoice07