The Muffyoglb

There comes a time, with any endeavor, when I feel that I've said everything I want to say within certain parameters. Having set myself a goal of tone and style, and having laid down rules for my own behaviour, I have a blast for two or three years and then -- slowly -- my enthusiasm wanes. That's how I felt with the Bollybob reviews and with the old She-Devils radio show.

Unfortunately that's also how I've begun to feel about "The Muffyblog."

When I started the blog I unconsciously chose the approach of writing first-person, experience-based posts in an almost "essay" style. I'd just started my technical writing job and, perhaps influenced by it, I tried to stay away from fanciful things, unfinished ideas, or just plain fantasy.

When I DID write inscrutable posts I fell afoul of my OTHER rule, one more consciously-decided: to respond to EVERY SINGLE COMMENT that anybody left for me. I wanted to be warm and friendly and welcoming. But whenever somebody asked me "what did you MEAN by that?" I felt the need to answer their question, even though I feel that inscrutable posts should NOT be explained.

In addition, I felt that I couldn't just respond to a comment by saying simply "Thanks!" or "I agree," I needed to write MEANINGFUL responses, which became increasingly difficult the more informal the comments were. In short, I felt I needed to write mini-essays to comments that the person probably didn't even expect a RESPONSE to, let alone one that was interesting or entertaining or meaningful.

As my mailbox filled with notifications of comments posted I grew increasingly avoidant. If I didn't meet a quota of at least one post for every day of the month, I felt like I was failing. And I had that nagging, familiar feeling that there were no more posts left in my head because I'd already said everything I'd wanted to.

---

The idea of "The Muffyoglb" is a liberation from this. It's a subtle change of philosophy. Rather than needing to write sociological studies of every experience in my life -- and not posting them until I've thought them through to some extent -- "The Muffyoglb" will be a spot for me to post what I feel like posting. I'm sure there will be unconscious rules for what I've posted -- that's inevitable -- but at least they'll be different rules, and hopefully more inspiring to me.

As for the comments, that's where the CONSCIOUS change is: I have promised myself that I no longer need to respond to them. I still crave them, and I'll read every single one of them, and if there are some that I want to answer then I definitely will...but I'll no longer NEED to. Comments will foremost be reader-created addendums to posts, if any are made.

---

Thank you for reading "The Muffyblog" and "The Muffyglob" over the last few years! Maybe "The Muffyoglb" will be exactly the same, or maybe it will go totally stagnant, but either way I feel like a weight has been removed from my back...and that's a good thing for me. It's probably a good thing for the blog as well!