Ironically, once you start to get readers the blogging becomes much more difficult – especially if they are people you know. Fergotron reads this blog. She is hugely supportive of it and that’s wonderful. I would imagine that anyone who starts a blog initially gets people close to them to follow and try to spread the word – how else can you start to build a following? The problem with this is that as one writes, one begins to employ a self-editor. The benefit of the blog is in knowing you can say anything, once you start to know people will see it you inevitably begin to review and question what you should and shouldn’t add in. You don’t want to upset anyone you know, you also don’t want to expose yourself to the people close to you. If I am trying to be strong and demonstrate that I am weak, how could my interactions ever be the same? As the following spreads amongst friends you find that you don’t want to let them know certain things. We all have an inner monologue that we don’t even share on twitter – imagine you found your friends reading your diary and talking about it, you wouldn’t feel the same when you spoke to them again. There is something unnerving about people knowing these things.
Perhaps though, the point of this blog is a little different to how I imagine. I tweet to parenting forums and so it may be that the direction of my writing and the content is less personal than I imagine and more geared towards the general experience of becoming a father and the transition of life therein. I feel now that I should stop mentioning when Fergotron and I fight – I’m sure she would be grateful for that anyway. As more people read I have to worry more and more about her privacy as well as my own. It’s not only myself that I expose in my writing.
However I do sometimes look at the comments section of my blog and wish someone would say something, just so that I know there’s someone there. So don’t be shy boys and girls, come and say hello, tell me how you are and if you would like to indulge my arrogance then ask me my opinion on something – I’d be happy to oblige