The Blogging Game

The lurgy is trying to tighten its grip on me but I’m not having it. I will fight you on the fields of the sofa, I will fight you from behind my desk at work, you will not succeed in drowning me in a snot and phlegm.


But enough about body fluids.

A girl in winter recently nominated me for a Liebster Blog Award which is for those blogs with less than 300 followers.

It actually couldn’t come at a better time for me because I’ve been thinking about this kind of thing for time and have had a few conversations with people about it.

I’m talking about the nature of blogging – why people blog and how blogs are determined to be a ‘success’.

I could sit here and tell you that “I blog for me” and “I would still be doing this even if there was nobody commenting” and maybe now that would be true but I am happy to be more honest than that. My soul craves attention and wants to belong somewhere, it likes it when people out there respond to something it’s written and say “Yes I agree” or heck even “No, I disagree” because at least you’re still paying it attention.

The real truth is that I don’t think I would blog if nobody was reading. Readers are my blog’s life-force. Without them it would most likely wither and die – it would certainly become a whole lot more pathetic (I know what you’re thinking, “Can she really get more pathetic?!” The answer is unfortunately affirmative.).

It is easy to get caught up in the Followers game. Especially if you’re a competitive soul like me. You start to get followers and suddenly you want more, you find yourself reading other blogs and going “Really?! They have more followers than me?!” and it sets off an unpleasant jealous streak which I spend large amount of my time trying to dampen down.

I don’t get caught up so much in how many people are following me now (although I would like to take this opportunity to wave goodbye to the two I lost over the weekend? Oh no, I can’t wave, they stopped following, they can’t see it. *sob*) and instead find myself focusing instead on the number of comments I get. Comments have become the new Life-force and I thrive on these instead. I get a lot of comments, my blogging soul feels restored.

But again, this can be a dangerous game. I have a tendency to think to myself that the only people who comment on a post are the only people who have read it and I know that’s not true. There are tons of posts that I read and don’t comment on – I follow a policy of “If-I-Don’t-Have-Anything-Constructive-To-Say-Then-Don’t-Say-It” – just because I haven’t commented, doesn’t mean I haven’t read it or not enjoyed your post, it just means that I didn’t feel I had anything really worthwhile to say.

So if I don’t get many comments I tell myself that it’s probably my fault – I haven’t written something which invites people to add comments and that’s just fine. Plus I know that there are people out there who read my blog and are not followers and never comment (I’m thinking of one in particular, you know who you are, I’m waving to you right now, Hello! Did you have fun on Sunday? How creepy is this?!) I try and comfort my soul with this knowledge – “It might not look like a lot of people are reading, but let’s just pretend they are instead.”

I feel I have gone somewhat off track.

So thank you to a girl in winter for giving me this award, I don’t normally “do” the blog awards thing but I felt this was timely and I would also like to pass it on to others who don’t have hordes of followers and who you might not have come across before.

The award dictates I pass it on to 5 people and my chosen blogs are:

The Curious Cat
Tete en l’air
Pink Cat, Custard and Cake
Odd Socks and Pretty Frocks
Nic’s Notebook
Now I’m going to go and berate myself for losing 2 followers – what did I do? Was there not enough crafting? Is it that I love cats so much it borders on disturbing? Are there not enough photos of flowers?

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And, as is the way with blogging awards, Pink Cat, Custard and Cake also nominated me for a Kreativ Blogger award at the same time. I’m supposed to tell you 10 facts about myself and then pass it on to 10 other blogs. But the thought of all that linking is weighing me down and I honestly can’t think of 10 things I haven’t told you all before. Certainly not 10 interesting facts. Can I tell you 10 random things instead?

1. Every other day I take all my change, apart from the £1 coins, out of my purse and put them in a little piggy bank, it racks up pretty quickly and then when times get dire I can raid it to buy nice little things for myself – like teabags from Sainsburys yesterday.

2. I wish I was named after someone important but instead I’m named after a random person my Mum was at college with – her, my Dad and my brother and sister couldn’t all agree on a name so Mum started listing people she was at college with and my name was the only name they didn’t all hate. Lovely.

3. My nails are currently bright blue. Because that’s how I roll.

4. My nickname at school was Teen Wolf because I was so hairy. Please pause here to offer me sympathy.

5. I am left handed. I know I’ve told you this before but I’m absurdly proud of it and wanted to remind you all again.

6. I can’t splay the toes in my left foot after a drunken incident where I fell down a flight of stairs when I was at university and sprained my foot. I try and practice but there’s nothing happening, what the hell did I do to myself?!

7. The little finger on my right hand is double jointed, I can gross people out with it.

8. If I won the lottery I would jack in my job immediately. Same if I get a rich husband.

9. I am just over 5’9” although no-one will believe me when I say that. They always say I must be taller than that but I swear I’m not.

10. I’m out. Can’t think of anymore. Erm....I’m going to have Sweet Potato and Chilli soup for my lunch. How’s that for a fact?!

I can't pass it on to 10 people, the thought of doing it is going to finish me off before the phlegm does. Plus there are a lot of creative blogs that I read out there, how could I only choose ten?!

Why yes, yes that is the sound of me shirking my responsibility.