As I’ve mentioned before, I didn’t set up as a mummy blog. I don’t think there really was such a thing when I started! And I don’t categorise myself that way now either, which is probably why I have a technorati authority of 1 😉 Just too many posts that don’t really fit into any particular category, and probably a few too many posts that are just day to day life.
Now, as I’m bumbling around trying to build the blog a little so that I can use that experience to build a writing career, I’m finding that I’m very much moving out of my comfort zone. I’m second guessing everything I write, each comment I make, where to enter my blog in linkies, whether to have a linky on my blog. I don’t want to link bait or beg for comments (and yes, I did change the first term I used there as being unsuitable for this blog!) but if I’m going to make it, I do have to raise my profile a little.
So I’m finding I have hard decisions to make and that it’s even tougher to break into blog friendship circles that have grown up and become firm without me even noticing their arrival.
I suspect that’s mainly because of how this blog grew. It grew in a group of friend’s blogs, we had memes that leapt from blog to blog, we even had a quizilla quiz (sadly long gone) to find out which blogring member we were. We welcomed new blogs and bloggers to our ranks, but with a condition – the blogring is for UK based home educators, mainly those with younger children although I’ve never excluded anyone on age grounds. So our little community stayed comfortably closed and ppl came and went (including me!) depending on their offsprings educational status.
What with one thing and another I didn’t see much of the external world of blogs until some time last year I think, when I somehow fell over the tots 100, and then was thrilled to get on to it. And gradually, from there I started to broaden my blogging horizons, culminating in my trip to Cybermummy last month.
Now I’m trying to make friends and build relationships via twitter and blogs and I’m finding it oh so hard.
You see, I’m not a naturally gregarious person. I’m not vivacious and talkative. I don’t rush up and hug my friends – while I’d kind of like to, I just don’t quite know how to do it. The moment always seems to pass me by, doing one of those awkward to and fro steps where you can’t decide whether to hug or not, and suddenly, you’ve not. On twitter I don’t know what to say, I try really hard to say the right things, but then I worry that I’m trying to hard, and coming across like a mad stalker. The etiquette of the site is very odd, with ppl desperate to increase their follower count and yet you can’t really chat with hundreds of ppl every day.
Not and do the things that count, anyway. I’m falling behind on my friends’ blogs. And on my own blogposts. Staring at stats when I should be keeping up with real connections, not making false friendships with imaginary ppl who probably don’t know who I am or what makes me tick*
Is it possible to do this blogging lark as a home educator, as a breastfeeding, cloth nappy using, feminist mother of three, without selling out and becoming consumerist? Can I do this without handing the blog over to infomercial posts or tarting for readers by posting things that I don’t really feel or believe in?
Am I’m a niche too far, or not far enough? I guess it’s one of those things that only time will tell.
*Note, if you’re on twitter but not imaginary that doesn’t apply to you, so you can’t be offended by it 😉
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