Blog Too Much?

“Do you think you blog too much?” An excellent question, posed by one of my mentors and greatest voices in my life.

I have to admit, my first response was monotone and choppy:  Blog Too Much. Does Not Compute.

There are some theories on blogging, on presence on the internet, building your platform, and creating your brand. Some of the gurus are suggesting we all back off a bit. Blog three or four times a week. Don’t flood the inboxes, or you’ll just smell like spam. There are business models of supply and demand, publishing once a week, letting your readers wait and crave and want.

I just don’t think that’s my gig.

I didn’t start blogging because it was a business model. I didn’t aim to build a platform.

I started blogging because I’m a writer and I needed to write. It’s like breathing, for me. It’s part of what I do. When I’m making dinner or stuck in traffic or dancing in my living room or hanging artwork, I don’t stop breathing just because I’m doing something else right now. It’s what I do – nearly involuntarily. Writing is breathing.

I started blogging because I’m a writer, and writers need readers, no matter what they tell you.

And then I met you.

Maybe someone forwarded a post to you with one line, asking you to read with them.
Maybe you found this clothesline of dirty laundry, and you binge-read every post from day one to the present.
Maybe you sign in on Saturday night after work, your date with me, your date with yourself, and you catch up on a week’s worth of stories.
Maybe you drink coffee with me every morning.
Maybe you stepped into a bookstore to step out of the rain, and you found yourself on these shelves.
Maybe you read a sentence and said, maybe for the first time, “Yes. That’s it. What she said. That’s what I wanted to say, what I’m trying to say, what I want my world to know.”
Maybe you joined the trenches when the bottom fell out of my world, and you were one of the invisible community who joined hands to form an unbreakable safety net, that I may never truly hit the ground.

There are people who give less as a strategy to sell more.
There are people who say “Authors write books, not blogs.”
There are people who create their brand and never vary from it.
These people are successful. And I applaud them for their strategy… since mostly, I don’t have a strategy. I’ve just got to do this.

For me, less isn’t more. More is more.
Authors write books and blogs.
My brand is Life Everyday,
Tell It How It Happened,
Say What You Mean,
and Think Out Loud.
Be There and Be Honest.
Read Every Comment and Email;
This is a Dialogue, not a Monologue.
Speak and Listen.
Write and Read.
Love and Be Loved.

You dropped into my life one day, and you didn’t leave. And here we are. Somehow, this ‘brand’ became a Relationship.

I’m in.

Do I blog too much? Probably.
But I’ll be back tomorrow. And the next day.
This is what we do, you and me.