Monday, March 3, 2014

From Introspection to a Google Docs Form

In the vlog I published on Saturday, you heard that this past month has been incredibly productive for me in terms of figuring out how to keep my blogging experiences and relationships positive.  While I do still feel frustrated about some aspects of and attitudes towards blogging, that negativity no longer controls how I approach the broader blog world.

As I mentioned, though, the meditative posts I read and the challenging conversations in which I participated across social media actually provoked more questions than they answered.  I'm still gathering my thoughts from the past month of reflection, but I think I've reached the limits of introspection and so I'm turing to you, dear readers, to help me put some of my observations in order.

I've made a Google form with five of the overarching questions that resulted from my month away from this space.  Most of them stem from my confusion about the rapid evolution of blogging - like I said in my vlog, I know that the changes aren't necessarily bad in and of themselves but I simply can't keep up.  I know from your comments and tweets and emails that you've been working though these issues, too, and I'd be enormously grateful if you'd share your thoughts with me, no matter how abstract or inconclusive they might be.  My plan is to use the next two Mondays, the 10th and the 17th, to publish posts inspired by your answers to these questions; on the 24th, I have scheduled a post about sponsorship, a topic you'll notice is missing from this form though it's one that comes up again and again around here.

I really would appreciate as many thoughts as possible to help me understand my own, so I'm offering a little incentive.  If you answered any of these questions - even one, even if you think your response wasn't coherent - leave me a comment below and you'll be entered in a giveaway to win a supercute set of ceramic measuring cups I picked up at Anthropologie recently for just this purpose.  If you share this post and encourage others to join in, let me know in another comment that will serve as an additional entry!  This is a scouts' honor thing since I expect predominantly anonymous responses, so I'll just trust you to only leave a comment if you did actually help out, okay?  Thank you a million times over!  I can't wait to read what you have to share.




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22 comments:

  1. Ok, I bit! I am really interested to see how people respond, and what you pull together from these answers. It really is a tough thing to be a blogger in today's blog world- how do you stick out and be read but still just be yourself?

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  2. I'm going to share on Twitter, too- I hope you get some responses from it.

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  3. I am also so interested to see what people say as the questions were so spot on with many of the aspects of blogging I personally battle with.

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  4. Wow! Those were some really thought-provoking questions! I really had to reign it in on some of my answers though, I didn't want to just overload you with a wall of type! hehe. I too, really want to read what some of your other readers have to say!

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  5. Whew. I just answered! Whether or not my answers make any sense or not is debatable. I completely wrote about whatever came to my mind first. Ha! Sorry in advance for anything that seems nonsensical. :P

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  6. I answered most of them! I'm so glad you're back to blogging. You know, it seems like quite a few bloggers I read took February off. Some of them announced it and some of them just seem to have disappeared for awhile. What it has made me realize is that I read some blogs out of habit, but I don't miss them. I don't plan to go back to all my old blogs. I might keep them around for a boring day when I need more to do, but I don't plan to be so involved. (You are not one of these. I missed yours!)

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  7. I just answered them! You really got me thinking! In fact, your first question has inspired me to write a post on that topic.

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  8. I tried & failed yesterday to put my thoughts into words/a comment, so I'm almost glad I gave up because your prompts are making it easier to break everything down! Really looking forward to hearing about what others have to say.

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  9. I answered! It was interesting to think through the questions and hopefully I didn't accidentally veer off topic too much! :)

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  10. I'm supposed to be working, but this was more fun.

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  11. I answered! It was so nice to sit down and actually pull my thoughts together on these questions. Can't wait to read the follow-up posts!

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  12. Thanks for doing a survey that goes above and beyond "what kind of posts do you like to read?" mumbo jumbo. I get tired of answering those. :) Your friend, Tina.

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  13. Just answered. Very thought provoking!

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  14. Such an interesting survey! Hope it helped you out.

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  15. I've taken it, and am so curious to see what others have to say!

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  16. This is such a thought-provoking survey, it made me realise how little I've thought about what I do! I'm sure you're going to get some interesting responses!

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  17. I finished! Finally! I cannot wait to see what comes of all this. I'm so interested in others' perspectives.

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  18. Whew! Took me all week to think about it, but I finally answered. I'm excited to see your upcoming posts about everyone's answers!

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  19. I just read this post and your other one about pausing blogging in February. Can really relate and for a while, I lost a lot of my blogging joy. I don't know if it was so much from the community as opposed to me not knowing why I was blogging and what my intentions were. I'm working on it in my own way and making peace with it. Still, I am so interested in seeing what you learn from compiling these answers. I'm sure there will be a whole load of good stuff! :)

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  20. Glad you're back to blogging this month! I've been feeling the same way when it comes to blogging so it was kind of cathartic to reply to your prompts lol :)

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I love reading your thoughts and suggestions! Please do leave a comment so we can get to know each other better.