Too busy to blog

Maud links to this story in the SF Chronicle where Alan Greenblatt wonders why bloggers always put excuse notes on their sites — does anyone really care?

In all the blogs I read regularly, there are frequent dog-ate-my-homework

postings in which the writer sheepishly announces that he or she has something

better to do today and simply can’t come out and create.

He is busy writing something for print publication (Alex Ross, “The Rest

Is Noise”), is sick or traveling (Terry Teachout, “About Last Night”), or hung

up by jury duty (James Wolcott, in the eponymous jameswolcott.com).

“Distracted by all sorts of busy-bother,” Wolcott informed the world the other

day. “More later.”

Who cares?

I’m sympathetic to the idea that bloggers might have something else to do

with their lives. After all, I’ve had live human beings tell me over lunch

that the demands of daily blogging put a real crimp in their ability to

perform more lucrative or at least more hopeful work such as drafting book

proposals.

Greenblatt does go on to offer an explanation, but he misses the main point of these apologies — which is that readers refresh expecting daily (or at least, regular) content, and when it’s not there, they are free to leave and try someone else. Or get antsy waiting for something new to arrive.

If blogging is a conversation, as some have surmised, then when one party drops out due to an unexplained absence, the conversation is at least temporarily aborted, and if it’s possible, it’s a courtesy to explain why.