Linker, Thinker, Soldier, Spy

I have been having a certain amount of angst lately about this site and what it all means. It just seems like I haven’t been making the most of it. Circumstances at work and at home have conspired to keep me from from posting regularly. And yet the pressure to post in order to keep a steady readership continues unabated. I feel disconnected from the ebb and flow of blogging. I don’t feel like I am communicating particularly well nor am I interacting with other people all that much. As a result the process often seems forced or somehow artificial. I vacillate between really working harder at posting and just giving up and putting blogging behind me.

There is a famous dichotomy in the Blogosphere between “thinkers” and “linkers” – those that post frequently but mostly short link filled posts versus those that post less often but in a more thoughtful and substantive way. Of course this is a generalization but one that contains a kernel of truth. The basic realization I have come to is that I simply do not have the necessary circumstances or skills to be a linker. My job doesn’t allow for it and my interests are not suited to scouring the net for links and stories to pass on. I will never be the type to highlight articles others have missed or be the first to discuss an issue.

What I feel like I can do, and what I feel like would be the best use of my time, is produce more thoughtful reviews and ruminations on books and ideas. Perhaps I am just kidding myself, but I feel like it is time to make a commitment to work at my writing and to focus this page on something worthwhile. If at first you don’t succeed try, try again. Right?

So here is what I am going to attempt:
- Stop requesting books unless they are a high priority and I know that I can and will read them in short order.
- Stop feeling guilty about not reading unsolicited books.
- Focus my non-fiction reading on subject areas I care about and where I can build on prior knowledge.
- In fiction, provide quick hit reviews on those books that are suited to it, but provide more thoughtful and in-depth reviews and essays about others.
- Stress quality over quantity.

The overall effect is likely to be more reading and less blogging, but I hope that the focused and thoughtful nature of the posts will be more rewarding for both me and the reader. This also means I will likely do less blog surfing and more thinking and organizing my thoughts. No offense to the fine bloggers and writers out there, but far too often the net becomes a vast time sink with little reward. I have managed to cut back TV to a bare minimum and I feel like I need to do something similar with the net. As with my own writing, I am looking to focus on quality writing rather than vainly trying to read hundreds of blogs or stay on top of dozens of stories and issues. For me, if the issue comes down to books versus other blogs I will tend to choose books. I will continue to read my favorite blogs and writers, but won’t spend a lot of time beyond them.

For blogging to work, IMHO, it needs to provide value and reward to the reader and the writer. My conception of this is evolving and changing. I need to try something different to adapt blogging to my life and to have it provide value. So consider this an experiment. Can Kevin get his stuff together and actually increase the quality of his writing? Can he focus his reading and thinking so that it adds up to something other than random thoughts on random books? Stay tuned . . .