209 and counting

Last week, my Facebook page reminded me that four years ago I put up the 100th post of CrowDayOne. My, my, my, how time flies!

Here we are at Post 209. The Old Crow has slowed down some, but she’s still carrying on. Perhaps it could be said of the old gal, as it was said about Elizabeth Warren, “Nevertheless, she persisted!”

Elizabeth Warren had something to prove when she kept talking, even though she was told to be quiet. In re-reading the origin of this phrase at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevertheless,_she_persisted  I was struck by her passion for justice. I wish I had her guts. But I don’t have that single-minded passion, and that’s not why I write.

To get an insight into why I am still writing (and to explain this to the patient RS who spends many a Saturday evening alone in his man-cave while I poke about in my studio putting the finishing touches on my post), I did a little research on blogging. I was blown away by what I found. Did you know that there are probably 500,000,000 blog websites existing in the world today? You read that right, people:  five hundred million blog websites! 2 million posts go out each day.

The first blog came out in 1994, and still exists (Links.net -- the author is in the cannabis business!). In the last five years, the average time for writing a post has steadily grown from 2:24 hours to 3:28 hours. (And some posts take weeks to put together.) The blog post length for the same period rose accordingly, from 808 to 1151 words. The median average time spent reading a blog article is 37 seconds. (source: NewsCred) Really? 37 seconds? Aghgh.

There are many reasons why people blog.  Some blog to grow their business, such as the cannabis dealer. Then there are professional bloggers who write to attract advertisers and make money; blogging is their full time job.  In a recent survey of 1500 bloggers, 9% reported they make between $1,000 and $10,000 a month and 4% make over $10,000 a month. That’s serious money. But the vast majority makes less than $3.50 per day. I am part of the vast majority, in fact, I’m at the bottom of the heap with a big fat zero. Just reading about how people made money at blogging left me fuzzy-headed, which explains the big fat zero. There are people who establish niche blogs on a single topic, like food or fashion or declutterng – Jamie Oliver is one of those. Some of these bloggers get really big and bring fame to the authors.

Hasn't happened yet!

 And then there is the Reverse Blog, developed because users have “a disdain for traditional blogging.” (Well! Imagine that!) Reverse blogging is almost like creating an online magazine to which many people who focus on an issue will contribute, and to which many readers subscribe.

And then there’s me, “the personal blogger who keeps to the spirit of traditional blogging (disdain, pffffttt!) We express “ideas and beliefs in a diary-like fashion.” Blogging probably got its "disdainful" reputation from folks who had nothing to write about but did it anyway.

Whatever. It appears that, like many traditional bloggers, I am like the lonely goatherd in the Sound of Music, yodeling out to the world, hoping someone will hear. Sounds a bit lame when you put it like that. And with 5 hundred million blogs out there, who needs another one?

The bottom line: I do! I write because I have to. It’s what I do. When I first began CrowDayOne, it was my vehicle for expressing everything that I had been carrying in my heart for a long, long time.

I finally figured that at age 65, perhaps I had enough discretion to put it on paper.  In retrospect, I realize that I’d been writing in my head since forever. That’s what I was doing when my eyes glazed over during everyday conversations, and I tuned out of lectures, discussions, sermons, and the noise of children arguing. More than once I heard them tell each other at the dinner table, even though I was sitting right there with them, “Oh, Mom’s not here, she’s writing.” Weird, but true. And after a little more digging and research, I found out I'm not the only one to feel this way. “I write because the little voices that live in my head tell me I must,” says one writer, and I know just what she means. I write to figure out what I believe and think.

I write to squawk about issues that disturb me deeply. I write because I need to tell someone, somewhere, what I’ve discovered about hope in dark times. I write because I believe we are all connected, and what I experience is probably what you’ve experienced too, and isn’t it great that we are not alone? I write because I am human, and the human condition is endlessly interesting to ponder and wonder about. I write because my story may illumine your story. I write because I love the look of words on paper, the beautiful way they take shape and fly off the page into maybe just one person’s heart, but one is enough. Other people sing, or paint, or run a marathon, climb a mountain or dish out meals at the soup kitchen --  because they must. I write. Simple as that. All the statistics about blogs? Irrelevant.

And what about you, reader? Why do you read? I’m so grateful you do...there are so many other things you could be doing with your precious “average time of 37 seconds” that it takes to read a blog – pull a weed in the garden, execute a few jumping jacks, take a trip to the bathroom, put dishes into the dishwasher or load laundry into the machine, hug someone dear – but you’ve chosen to read this. Thanks!

There! #209 is ready to send out into the world. And onward...


Word to Remember: Don’t say anything online that you wouldn’t want plastered on a billboard with your face on it. ~Erin Bury