In Defense of Zan Strumfeld

One of the most concerning parts of writing a blog, in my opinion, is the perception of what happens when the blog post is finished.  We wait for the comments.  We hope that the responses don’t turn into a blogpost flame war.  We respond back.

And then we try to do it again with a new topic, with a new concept, with a new observation.

And we keep on doing this, a proverbial treadmill to oblivion, coming up with ideas and observations and “Caption This” posts and whatnot.

It’s the process of coming up with new ideas – and then taking the time to actually write them down and post them – that is one of the biggest challenges to a blogger.  Sometimes that “time” isn’t there.  Sometimes it interferes with our real lives.  And then we don’t post for a day or two.  And then we post… and we don’t post for another few days.  And then we post that we’re not completely gone, but then we don’t post for awhile.

This morning, I noticed that Zan Strumfeld, the blogger who is chronicling her life as a college student and writing major, posted.  She doesn’t post very frequently – in fact, the reason for her post this morning was that she received a very harsh comment about her lack of posting, and that she said if she didn’t post at least twice a week in 2011, that she would ask TU blog boss Michael Huber to find another person to replace her and that she would voluntarily withdraw from the TU blogpage.

Honestly, I can sympathize with Zan.

And you look at me and say, “Chuck are you serious?  You’ve posted at least one blog post a day since August 2009.  In fact, one day you posted in the afternoon instead of the morning and I thought maybe you had taken ill.”

I’ve done that, yes.  Once a day – but that’s on the TU blog page.

In the past, I’ve written on various homebrew blog pages, mostly blogspot.com and blogger.com.  In fact, my first attempt at a blog was back in 2002 – I posted three or four consecutive blog posts, and then for some reason I wasn’t motivated enough to post again.  A few weeks later, I posted – a couple more here and there, but then I stopped. And six months later, I simply deleted all the posts and shut down the account.  Blogfailure #1.

I tried again to write a blog when I had a MySpace page.  Ah, MySpace.  Even typing that name brings back memories of garish graphic user interfaces and corny / intrusive questionnaires.  I tried to write something every day, but again I ran into roadblocks – including whether or not the topics I wanted to express were actually interesting at all in the MySpace world.  About one year after I signed up with MySpace, I deleted the account – and the blogs inherent thereto.  Blogfailure #2.

I tried once more, with a blogspot.com webpage.  My posts were more frequent, and I actually received a hit or two and a comment or two.  I was still trying to find my voice, trying to conceptualize a blog that would express what I wanted to say and how I wanted to share it.  And by the time I figured it all out, Michael Huber contacted me and asked me to join the TU family of bloggers.

And as I looked over the blog community and read the posts and the content, one of the blog pages stood out – it was Zan Strumfeld and her experiences as a college student.  She was able to share all the excitement and nervousness of going to college and dealing with classes and deadlines and home life and the like.  Her posts were funny and erudite and entertaining.

It was because of her posts – the quality, not so much the quantity – that made me decide that if the TU wanted a good writer like Zan Strumfeld on their team, then their invitation for me to join the blog page was genuine and not just based on gathering every single Capital District blogger they could find.

So I signed the blogging contract and joined in.  And I haven’t regretted a single day since.

Look, we all go through writer’s blog-block.  Every blogger does.  It’s nothing to either be ashamed about or frustrated over.  It’s how we deal with the situation that makes us stronger as writers.  Yes, this is a new year and we go through our New Year’s resolutions – losing weight, saving money, quitting smoking, the works – and through it all, we have to remain constant in what we do, whether it’s blogging or anything else.  In my earlier blogs, I’ve gone through long periods when I didn’t post.  And it does get overwhelming.  You want to get back in there and post just like you want to get back in the fitness center.  It’s getting past that barrier – in whatever way possible, whether it’s through personal goals or through writing something out of our comfort zone – that shows our character and commitment as bloggers and as writers and as humans.

I don’t expect Zan to post some goofy quickie comment and then say, “I blogged today, I’m done.”  She’s a writer.  She wants to put something on that blogroll that involves her personal view and comes from her personal heart and mind.

So she hasn’t posted in a while?  Big deal.  That just means she hasn’t come up with a blog post that she feels is worthy of having her name attached to it.  You go tell William Kennedy to hurry it up on his new novel, because you’ve read Roscoe 15 times already and you’re sick of waiting.  You go tell J.K. Rowling to get busy with another Harry Potter book.

Zan, don’t let other people impose their concept of what they want out of a blog on you.  I enjoy reading your blog and your comments and observations.  Would I like to see them more frequently?  Only if you keep up the quality of your previous posts.  Don’t ever sacrifice quality for quantity.  You would no sooner write a quickie blog post than you would hand your professor a first draft as your senior thesis.

So I look forward to reading the next and future blog posts from Times Union blog neighbor Zan Strumfeld.  And so should you.

No matter if it takes two days or two weeks for the posts to appear.