Bloggin' ain't easy

Looking at our anemic blog, I laugh thinking about how I made this big pitch to Robert to start this project in the first place.

A few months ago, my friend Diane suggested that one of the things that would make blogging difficult is that writing is work. Not just in the "it takes effort" sense, but that academics are constantly writing lectures, tests, articles, chapters, books, conference papers, commentaries, etc. The idea of writing in one's free time, as a leisure activity, can seem downright counterintuitive.

My friend Eric has a blog in which he limits his posts to 100 words. I completely empathized with him when he explained that one of his biggest obstacles to blogging regularly is the need to tell the "whole story" -- including all the relevant background information, having a cogent introduction, argument, and conclusion, following lines of thought to their utter completion.

This has stopped me from writing many times. I want to comment about one of Obama's speeches, the impending recession, the sad state of higher education, or even the latest episode of Battlestar Galactica, but I feel like I have to explain too much to get my point across. Many a discarded post began with something along the lines of "First, let me explain..."

I think Bill the Cat said it best when he said, "Oop. Ack."

So I am going to take another stab at blogging. I want our site to be more active. Hell, I haven't told half the people we know about the blog because I wanted it to be fully operational before springing it on the public. (Like the Death Star, but with words!)