Many years ago I started a newsletter for writers online. I called it InkSplatters. It ran on the site that is now Yahoo Groups. (Does anyone remember when it was Yahoo Clubs for awhile and something else not even part of Yahoo before that?) The newsletter began as a spin off from a site my friend was doing called The Writer’s Pen. We worked on The Writer’s Pen together (he did most of it) but InkSplatters was all my own creation. I even sent it out with some of my own ASCII art as borders. Quite the fancy newsletter some days.
It lasted a few years. I was doing okay with it. I had over a hundred subscribers, then 250 and beyond but there was little feedback. In the end it was for that reason I decided to shut down the newsletter. I know other online projects have ended for that same reason.
Publishing online can be lonely. There should be some kind of cute name for it. Like cabin fever for when you have been indoors too long and desperately must get outside, break free of the inside space. It became known as cabin fever for the pioneers who were trapped inside their small farm houses most of the winter, snowed in or just too cold to leave. Publishing online is like that too. You keep posting, hoping to hear something besides the echo of silence all around you. No doubt that’s why I tend to write with the radio or TV on in the background.
Still there is the urge to be that pioneer, to try something, to start something and try to make it grow. I still do it. I start things independently or I join up other sites and networks to start something as a smaller part of something big. But, there are days when I feel overwhelmed by the to-do list I keep building for myself. There are days when the cabin fever of online publishing gets to me. When I lived alone there would be a day when I’d realize I had not spoken a word all that day. I typed a lot, but spoke not at all.
I look at my work, this site and the others and it’s so very quiet. The only sound is the TV or the radio. The comments that come in are like life rafts of communication. I’m not just talking to myself after all! There really are still people in the world.
Being inside too much also narrows your focus too much. Get out there, people watch or even talk to someone. Blow up your world again, remember what it’s like to be really social, face to face. It may be a bit scarier than talking online but we all need that interaction too. A breath of life in our quiet publishing world.
When you get back online comment in a few blogs, randomly. Spread that breath of life around. Yes, it’s good for your blog stats but more importantly, it’s really good for the blogging community too. Remind someone else that, just because it’s quiet, doesn’t mean there isn’t anyone out there, reading, listening, maybe laughing at the right parts too.
How do you battle that cabin fever of being a web writer, an online publisher?
Word Grrls is my mad science experiment, my adventures with fame and world domination (politely). This is where I inspire people to create: invent mutations, cause change, bring colour into your world. Web writer since 1998. Find me on StumbleUpon , and Tumblr.
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For a long time I couldn’t bear the solitary aspects of writing, and that’s when I turned more to photography. Photography allowed me to tell stories in a way similar to writing, but it required me to go out and find them.
Now I’m considering taking the Web with me. I’m considering a laptop or a notebook computer. I’m considering a smart phone.
I’m looking forward to being places where I can have a tea and bagel and also be connected to my writing. And my photography.
I’m also wondering if that may be too much of a distraction, though? One of the things which either spurred or has gone hand in hand with my writing involves my desk now facing a wall, not a window. Remember our window? Good gods, there’s always something going on outside it and this is a small town.
I take myself off and walk the Cypriot village I live in. I chat in a little Greek and wamble home loaded down with free gifts of fruit and veg.
I meet the odd expat for a bit of English/broken English chat, then sit happily in my silence again. I do have to be outside 90% of my time, the fresh air and surroundings inspire me. So I sit in the shade with my laptop connected to the world, my pen and pad to hand. Birds and the odd tractor are my companion noises.
I read this whole post thinking, Yeah! Exactly! I know just how you feel!
Then I got to the bottom and saw 0 comments. That just can’t be, so I had to comment. I just found your blog today through aCMF ad on Emm-media (who dropped card on my blog). How’s that for a small, lonely blogging world?
I think feed subscriptions plus social networking sharing (especially sharing of posts via Twitter and Facebook) has replace the time that many people would usually spend commenting. I have noticed that I comment less when I’m ticking through 200 various posts in Google Reader than when I stumble on someone’s post while web surfing.
i think the art of writing is heavily influenced by surroundings. it’s like growing grapes for wine or coffee beans: the climate, soil and overall topography plays an important role. i noticed that the timbre of my writing changes when i pop into a coffee shop or an office desk.
it would be good practice to vary your writing location, IMHO.
I do my best to go out there and comment on people’s blogs. I know how isolated I can feel sometimes and so I just try to share a bit of encouragement and interest.
Mostly I just look at my stats each morning and I see that people are reading and that they are clicking through items and arriving from search engines and that keeps me going.
I notice that too Jayvee. I don’t have a laptop but I bring along a notebook of the old fashioned kind and make lots of notes for ideas to write in full when I’m at the computer again. It makes a lot of difference to write in different places. I’ve written about that once before. I should again.
I used to always keep a counter on my blog just to see the numbers inch up so I would feel someone had been here, other than myself. Now I find the counter isn’t really working, does not show people who have subscribed and are reading off the site. That was a nice update for me. Now I know I have more readers than show up there. It gives a purpose to you when you sit down to babble on.
Ah this sounds so very assuring. As a very recent newcomer of blogs, I am, however well prepared I thought I was, suprised by how little people come to my blog, and by how even less actually say something. It’s, in some ways, nice to read that, whether it’s backed-up by facts or not, the lonely feeling will somehow be a constant.
On this little raft of communication sits a teeny, tiny, teddybear, and he’s reading a book…
I like this post a lot. Truth.
I hope you’re taking your own advice, as I always take yours.
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I do try to balance being out there with the time I spend sitting here. It’s not an even balance but it’s not bad. I am good at being a talker but I am easy in the role of just listening too. People think I’m too quiet but I’m just listening, observing. You never know what you will pick up from a trip into the great old world.
I’m getting out today for coffee. Tomorrow will probably be some babysitting. On Sunday I’m meeting a new friend at the bookstore. Funny how most things I like are not far from coffee.
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