Emily Gould Exposed

My friend Cara posted a link to Emily Gould’s piece on blogging, and it definitely struck a chord.

"I think most people who maintain blogs are doing it for some of the same reasons I do: they like the idea that there’s a place where a record of their existence is kept — a house with an always-open door where people who are looking for you can check on you, compare notes with you and tell you what they think of you."

This is what initially horrified me about starting a blog at all but now I've come to really enjoy it and delight in the one of two comments that arrive in my email once they've been posted to the blog. Though I do try to keep my over sharing in check, for which I'm sure we're all glad. Emily also talks about writer's block, which I have gone through myself in varying degrees (usually tied to the heat of summer and the lack of desire to knit).

"The will to blog is a complicated thing, somewhere between inspiration and compulsion. It can feel almost like a biological impulse. You see something, or an idea occurs to you, and you have to share it with the Internet as soon as possible."

But more, since Knerq is supposed to be a knitting blog, I worry more about staying on point... which is funny because I seem to get more comments about the posts that are not about knitting at all. Visitors spike on the days that I post pictures of my cats or flowers in my garden... which makes me wonder who are my readers? How did they find me? Why do they read my blog if they don't knit and don't know me?