Meraki ~ 4
In a few days time this blog will complete 5 years! When I had started I never knew what was in store for me, not that I know about it now. But yes it feels glad to see that I have reached this landmark. 5 years of loving this blog, 5 years of writing, 5 years of trying to understand myself better and 5 years of challenging everything that came between me and my blog.
Since last 2 years as might have noticed due to my health conditions my blogging has come down a lot. I feel I am writing in floods and droughts at times. But as I have accepted it now, as long as I am able to write it is good. Because it means I am able to listen to my subconscious and hold onto those thoughts without letting it hold onto me.
Needless to add definitely it has impacted my ability to visit fellow bloggers and comment on their blogs as much as I used to before. You need to believe me when I say at times I even forget to publish the comments I receive and reply to them. (Sorry! No excuses there but yes it is a state of mind.)
This resulted into a lot of loss for me. I lost readers from the blog, from facebook and twitter as well. Maybe they noticed that I am not reciprocating their comment and hence chose to stay away. Which is fair in blogosphere as THAT is the norm.
It took me a while to accept this as I had began to feel that perhaps somewhere I was ignoring my blog due to my other aspirations (writing novels, editing novels etc)Nothing wrong in it you might say but I had promised my blog that I will never allow it get affected by whatever I become in life professionally. I saw many other authors' blogs too repeating the same story where blogging took a back seat. It was perhaps a consolation to myself that it's okay.
Till recently I kept believing in this when in a FB group I follow I read a post by another blogger. It was a very normal post of announcing a new blog when someone asked in the comments about her old blog which was 4 years old supposedly. She wrote that because of loss of readers the blog died so I am trying to build a new one with this now. And this brought in so many similar comments. I saw people reply Ditto, same here etc to some who had stopped blogging because of lack of readers and chosen to concentrate only on writing books, which was again fair! But that was an eye opener for me.
It meant that blogs also come with their own life-cycle where at one stage they are growing and then they reach a saturation. I then went back and saw that so many of the blogs I used to read regularly are today non-existent. Some even deleted and some not active at all for years now. Looking around today even I have some blog posts which have not been read at all or commented upon in my blog. I know some are average but some have been well written and continue to be my favourites. I am glad that "non-readership phase didn't make me quit blogging because right now that is the only blessing I have to bank upon.
