But that’s a lot of work! I fully respect those who can do it who aren’t selling out and adding to the cultural conversation instead of being a thought vampire and gaining notoriety off of other people’s hard work.

I blog because I love to and have issues I want to talk about. I have a regular readership but it certainly isn’t on the scale of Instanpundit or the legendary La Shawn . Even so, it is a quality community and people I care and pray for, even some I cherish.

Blogging isn’t a lie but it does follow the rule of all humanity: Leadership = influence = communication = relationship. If those four elements are in place, your blog will be successful if you have a handful of readers or millions.

I need to be disciplined though and revisit when I have more time. Although I do not subscribe to many aspects of a conservative ideology, I do respect your poised rationale and your real-world pedigree. Your openness blows me away.

Though I don’t necessarily share some of your political views, I can’t help but feel connected to you (as a black American woman who also has graduate degrees in English and Law).

I’m linking to you, not under any quid pro quo premise, but because of your distinctive and enlightened perspective with which I’d like to become better acquainted.

Thank you for this article. It was informative. And encouraging for a “tailer” who just needs to keep honing her writing skills and to be reminded of her “true” motives for blogging.

I wish you all the best and will visit often.

Yasmin

In her post, Blogging: An Innocent Fraud?, LaShawn Barber links to technology writer and blogger Nicholas Carr’s post The Great Unread. He discusses those of us who are in the “long-tail” of the blogsphere and how we must be disillusioned because we …

Well, I do participate in memes/themes and I get the hits I first was looking for. But now and then I ’sneak’ in a personal post and people still read…

Is there a social structure to the blogosphere? You betcha. In Blogging: An Innocent Fraud?, LaShawn Barber comments on Nicholas Carr’s The Great Unread: Carr calls blogging an “innocent fraud,” a reference to a book on economics of the same…

Any bloggers reading this please remember most people aren’t going to comment or trackback, and those counters you use aren’t always accurate. You may never make the A list, but it’s easy (especially on a blog setup like LaShawn’s ) for people to engage in dialog— I love the way it works here, and it’s something I wish I could entice MY readers into doing!

Hmmm—I’ve got an idea! LaShawn, As soon as I submit this comment, I’m going to start climbing up your comments list, I want to visit every blogger that’s taken the time to leave you a comment or trackback on this subject.

It’s nice too when those with different points of view are allowed to comment and offer input. A lot of bloggers edit them out, ban them and some (like Michelle Malkin) don’t even give the option for readers to comment! Thanks, LaShawn, for all of your wonderful posted articles and stories, and thanks for letting us other folk put our little two-cents in!

I’m a professional pianist, but my love is classical piano. Nobody much wants that, so I play dinners, churches, weddings, funerals, etc. I’m background music. As a music teacher, very few students “want it” enough to do the work. But still I labor months on something like a Bach Toccata. It’s worth doing, so I do it for myself, and if someone hears it and gets something, that’s a bonus. There is a freedom in that.

I don’t understand the bloggers who have trouble coming up with enough things to blog about. I always find more material than I have time for. It’s like antimedia said, if I didn’t blog, I’d explode. Readers are the icing on the cake. Commenters are the cherry on top.

Being more than a little modest here, aren’t you? Some bloggers are “big” because they got in early, before the wave. Others are “big” because they were big in “real” life, so people were drawn to their blogs. A few bloggers are “big” because they have something truly interesting to say and they say it in compelling ways.

The rest of us (or at least some of us) blog because, if we didn’t, we’d explode.

But you, my dear, are a phenomenon. Unique, refreshing, stubbornly principled and amazingly fearless. I read you every day but don’t get to comment nearly as much as I should. I can count on one hand the number of bloggers who truly amaze me routinely. You are in that list.

Blogging: La Shawn Barber has been doing a great series on blogging. Check out her latest post, Blogging: An Innocent Fraud? She knows what she’s talking about.

I’m still new and very ambivalent about the whole thing.

I’m surprised I’ve kept mine going for 4 months now.

Does anyone else feel this way: ….that you really don’t want anyone else to read your blog?

It’s not a self-confidence thing; I like my own writing…I just get embarrassed, at times, to think that the whole world could see.

I think it’s like a stage fright type of thing.

You like to perform….you just don’t want anyone looking at you.

Strange.

But that’s the false security of having no comments or links……you lull yourself into thinking nobody’s reading, and nobody’s gonna see it.

A false sense of privacy.

I just like taking a blank canvas, starting with nothing….and creating something.

I’m really not in it for the popularity; and, I’m wondering if Bloggers that are big, ever wish they could go back to the days when they were relatively unknown, and the comforts of anonymity.

There is a price to be paid when you are that popular.

—the increased scrutiny/loss of privacy etc.