The Impossible Balance of Blogging

The Church Mouse

The Christian Blogosphere will be reeling from the news yesterday that The Church Mouse will be stepping back from the exercise wheel of blogging. Certainly, this news is received with great sadness by this blogger, and I send my warmest wishes to him after a very brave decision to take time out.

Since I started this game about 18 months ago, my behaviours have changed and so have those of others. I know a few people who have just ceased to write, others who have stopped blogging to the same extent in order to devote time to other things (+Alan Wilson being one such geezer), that some bloggers have become feverish in their daily turn-over, and that others have emerged new and fresh. The Blogosphere changes monthly, and even this foolish enterprise is not among those with the label 'established'.

I have noticed my own behaviours change too. At the start, I wrote a post every two or three days. At the end of last year I was a thrice-daily blogger, and the needs of job applications trimmed that to nearly once a week. The balance has landed currently with a post a day, and that feels about right for me. 

Life changes for bloggers as it does for everyone, though the allure of this pastime does not. Those unaccustomed to writing will not know the change of mindset that comes with this. We see something of interest and we seek to write about it. In fact, in those times when we cannot, bloggers get frustrated - trust me (one only need recall those occasions lately when Blogger has 'gone down' - bloggers started up new blogs rather than wait). Our family's needs change too. My children have lived a third of their life with a blogging dad and so that particular landscape has, by necessity, changed as well. Blogging is a constant appetite, but the rest of life ebbs and flows - and so we have a problems for fitting it all together. Sometimes it just doesn't.

And so we have our esteemed Mouse. In his notice, he made a short statement about withdrawing from this lark out of regard for family, and he has my respect and admiration for making what to the rest of the world may seen like the only choice. A great support to me, a balanced view in many debated, often copied always poorly, I wish him the very best, and his family. For the rest of us, the juggle continues - and if we honest, with a big mouse-hole left on Fridays when we all gather to see if we made the cut.