If either one of my readers is still with me at this point, you may have noticed that my posting has been really slow lately, and I haven’t had much to say on several key stories that have hit the news. Unfortunately, life is conspiring to constrict my blogging time rather badly right now. When I blog about local issues, I try to do a bit of research as I prepare the post. I check other area blogs, scroll through all the local media contacts, look back into my own posts and sometimes those of other blogs, looking for key points that need to be linked.
Why do I do that? I mean, I could (and have) posted stories that are little more than spur-of-the-moment rants, but I’m not so egotistical as to think you’re coming here just to see lil’ ol’ me piss and moan about whatever’s annoyed me lately. The blog actually started out to be exactly that — but I had hardly begun putting electrons on the screen before a little something got in the way.
My vanity. If you were to mutter the words “ego reinforcement” about now, I wouldn’t disagree. I don’t think I’m the next Instapundit (or even TBIFOC) when I see more than 100 visitors in a day (insert roll of eyes here), but blogging is an inherently egotistical experience: the writer naturally thinks his or her words have value and are worth sharing. If we still had an old-fashioned 19th century agrarian society, we’d be the loud guy in the corner of the tavern holding forth on anything and everything. Put two of us in the same tavern, and we’d be the village’s entertainment as we argued back and forth every night.
So I wanted my words to have value, and that meant picking and choosing them with at least some care, rather than just dashing off whatever came to mind first. I am given to endlessly editing, changing the entire structure of an argument as I go, and sometimes, as I argue around a point, I find that I’ve ended up on the opposite side from where I’ve started. It’s happened more than once. Then there’s finding out that I’ve wandered off the point for three paragraphs that I need to delete and/or save for the future.
The second thing came a bit later. I began to realize, as my focus shifted from the War on Terror to more local matters, that I have a fairly unique opportunity and ability. As an insider, I have a view of the inner workings of the City of Houston, and can perform two vital functions: first, I can assist citizens with understanding their goverenment and the context in which various decisions are being made. This is something our local media is terribly lax about (though I’ve noticed some improvement lately. . . ) Second, I have a (small) bully pulpit, from which I can push for changes that I think will be beneficial for the city as a whole, not just one little interest group. Satisfying these two goals is the most time-consuming of all the things that go into this blog. I can’t just say “I think city employees should receive a raise!” I have to show why I think we should, the consequences of failing to do so, and sometimes anticipate counter-arguments. This means more research and linkage to make my point.
In brief, to have my words be taken seriously by you, the reader, I have to add value to my posts. And that brings me to my third reason/motivation for quality blogging: material reward. (Waiting for the laughter to die down….) Now I’m not under the impression that I’m going to make a fortune, nor do I believe that there’s a lot of people out there who will make a rush to hit my tip jar or buy me something off my wish list because they have more money than sense–even if I engaged in cyber-begging. But I have some plans in that regard which will be announced soon, and for them to work out, I need readers. “It’s a numbers game” is a truism that means I have to give my readers some value, a reason to show up. And a reason to send a link to their friends, to tell them to show up.
So the second and third reasons mean I have to blog well and informatively, while the first one means I won’t really respect myself if I don’t. Or it all means I’m just neurotic.
