Why? Because I've had the attention span of a carrot the last few days. I had started out firing up the laptop, getting ready to sign Mom up for online checking. All cozied up with coffee and a country morning breeze, I forgot to grab Mom's checkbook and the banking info I needed, which was in my purse. While digging through the purse, I spotted my new lip balm, said "oooooo!" and ran to the mirror to play makeup.
"What in the hell am I doing?" was followed by the answer, "Oh, crud, I'm banking right now!" and dashing back out to the computer to finish up Mom's financial business.
If I had decided to put that tidbit on facebook, I would have left an update such as
What is wrong with me? Just got sidetracked with lipbalm while doing Mother's banking!
I've read blogger after blogger comment that Facebook has been the demise of their blog and their posts, and I have fallen into the very same trap. I've just given you an example. Great blog posts are being lost to 1-line mission statements! (Ok, lip gloss and bedhead do not necessarily a great post make, but you know what I mean.)
I was recently discussing this dilemma with my wise dear friend Revision99, and his input was thought-provoking:
Facebook does take you away from blogging. The idea of a whole post being just a couple of hundred characters is pretty tempting compared to the effort of sitting down and writing something funny or touching or meaningful on your blog. And people tend to leave Facebook on all day, so even if you just say "This coffee stinks!" you will have 7 comments in a few minutes. Very beguiling.He also had some interesting things to say about its contributing more to our dumbing-down.
Who needs a beginning, middle and end? No one will read it anyway. I recognize the attraction, but I am dismayed by it. [...] Everything is thoughtless and abbreviated.I agree with him wholeheartedly, and unfortunately, I sometimes resemble those remarks. I still read all of the blogs I ever did, but often I'll open someone's long post with no photos, and I'll sighhh, and mark it was unread. It's too much, I'll come back. My own short & sweet posts with funny pictures are always better received than the longer ones, and I'll admit to hunting for photos, sometimes, so as not to lose you.
Welcome to Central Illinois Humidity.
See how that works?
In summary, then, and in my own personal "Save the Blog" campaign, I'm going to try to get those oh-so-witty Facebook updates transferred back to blogger, and to liven this place back up.
Let's get this party starteddddddddddd!
For now, I must take my leave; I'm sure my lip gloss needs touching up.
So pretty.
Welcome back.
ReplyDeleteI need to get back into the habit of reading your blog. I always love what you share!
ReplyDeleteThank you! I always love what you share. And your pics.
ReplyDeleteMy will to write has been sucked down the Facebook rabbit hole. These sentences are hard to put together, and lately the effort seems so not worth it. But inside I still think I'm a blogger, so I'll probably find my way back to the Land of Comp 1A one day, after I get rid of a few real-life distractions. Lori, I've always read your blog, cover to cover you might say, so I'll be happy if there's more of it.
ReplyDeleteAs always, you say it with such humor and spot on that I just have to say "wow." Hollywood should hire you as a writer.
ReplyDeleteI have lost many of my favorites bloggers to Facebook (as I have ranted before). Your friend is brilliant. Letters have turned to emails have turned to text messages have turned to C U L8R. Not if you don't start using words again, you won't. Oooo...getting a little heated, aren't I? Anyway, it's always good to have you writing and, for the record, I prefer blogs with more words than with fewer. Isn't that the point? But, yeah, I'm a Freak, so...
ReplyDeleteI'm not a big FB fan. I probably dedicate about 5 minutes a day on average. My friends have to call me to tell me to look at their pictures. My thoughts are too long to put into soundbites, I guess. But I think the real truth is something I found myself saying out loud in 1988: I've always been more comfortable around strangers than around people I know.
ReplyDeleteYou know I'm right there with you. At least once a week, I vow to blog more. Just like you, my thoughts that once would have been expanded to a full blog post, have become status updates. Once I share it as a status, followed by the beguiling flow of comments, I lose the feeling of urgency to blog about it.
ReplyDeleteI'm on FB but I can't force myself to get into it. And thus I miss lots of news about friends, but so be it. If I spend 20 minutes a week there, it was a good week.
ReplyDeleteAnd yet, for the past couple of months I've been having trouble blogging too. I don't seem to have anything interesting to say. I figure if I'm boring the hell out of myself, I'd better not start boring the few readers I have...
Always read, don't comment much.Plastic and a rubber band keeps my salt dry, pain in the tush but it works.
ReplyDeleteI think you're on to something here. And—there are just too many outlets any more: not just FB but Twitter, etc. It's really too much to try to keep up with, if you're trying to keep a blog going as well.
ReplyDeletePut a few grains of uncooked rice in your salt shaker. It absorbs the moisture and keeps your salt flowing smoothly.
ReplyDeleteOh god, I've become my mother doling out hints from hell-0-ise.
Unfortch, there is rice in that shaker; maybe I need to change it out, occasionally?
ReplyDelete