I think I may have mentioned this before. In fact, I know damn well I have. How I occasionally check the stats page of this ’ere blog. When I’ve nothing better to do. Or just filling in a few spare moments in between doing other stuff.
One of the things that fascinates me is how people end up here. Where they come from sort of thing.
Searching for something maybe. But also from other blogs. That sometimes, if I’m in the mood, I’ll check out. If they have a sufficiently captivating title.
And so it was yesterday.
There’s this click-through showing up from another WordPress blog. Likely as not, thinks I, generated by one of those “automatic related post” links that’re a feature of some WP blogs… if its been enabled.
But in this particular case of which I speak? Not! Seems I’m on their blogroll. Well, bugger me. And I knew not a thing about it. Well well well. How did they find me originally? Heaven alone knows. Cos I certainly don’t. Its all very… er… dunno. Something.
Has me wondering now just how many other blogrolls I may be on… and none the wiser. Not sure whether I’m comfortable with that or not. Still, that’s the ’net for you I guess. Never quite know who’s peeking over your shoulder.
Anyway, that on its own wouldn’t particularly merit my writing a post about it.
So what sets this particular one apart?
Well, I visit this intriguing blog (that seems to go under the title of “minus 1 thousand”, authored by “Digital Nomad”… hey, what a great name!) and find I don’t land up on its home page, but one some pages in.
And just as well I did. Cos there’s the brilliant discovery, and the thing that’s compelled me to “take note” as it were.
Pics! Of flowers. Dried flowers. And drying flowers. And petals. Gorgeous they are too. The pics that is. Plus the subject-matter of course. But the pics mainly.
“Ooh, how lovely” thinks I.
And one post on this page particularly catches my attention. The pic’s simply beautiful. About which our mysterious Digital Nomad has this to say…
Petals drying in the sun. We covered them with a tablecloth by mistake, and the entire tablecloth came away completely scented with rose fragrance
And that does it for me. Cos I love roses. More than daffodils even… and that’s saying something! And I’ve messed around with them myself in the past. Drying them. Trying to extract the essential oil and so forth. And just those few words, and accompanying pic (such a lovely pic) conjures up for me once again the fragrance of them. That I know so well.
Dammit, I can smell it even now. Beautiful.
So Digital Nomad, whoever you are, thanks so much for adding me to your blogroll and thereby enabling me to enjoy what’s proven to be a really delicious experience. And I envy you so much for having that gorgeous-smelling tablecloth… what a fortunate mistake eh?
Much appreciated. And now of course I must necessarily reciprocate. Which is what this post is all about. Sad thing is though, nothing appears to have been added to the blog since August ’09. Shame really.
Oddly enough it is the end of your post that resonates most with me. I have regularly come across blog websites or Flickr photostreams whereby I am quite enthralled with what is being offered. It is during the course of exploring said sites I often find they are no longer maintained… or nothing new has been added in some extensive time period.
It always leaves me both a little said and a bit mystified. Sad because they are no longer keeping up the site and I really like what I have found, and puzzled as to why the site is no longer updated. Did something happen to them? Did they simply get bored? What?
Yeah. I find it a bit depressing. Its a bit like wandering through a town centre and seeing loads of shops closed down.
My guess is that in a lot of cases someone sets something (a blog or something) up and cos its new puts in a bit of work on it. Then something else comes along and they lose interest. Just sort of forget about it. And the Web seems to be littered with such stuff.
I sometimes wonder whether there’s some sort of “magic milestone”… a point in time after which one can assume that the first flush of enthusiasm has passed and that such-and-such a site is here to stay. Round about the 2.5-3 years mark sounds about right to me. Whaddya think?
Your time estimate seems reasonable and I think I can recall noticing this time period on a handful of these sorts of sites.
I myself am guilty of such when it comes to blogs on both LiveJournal (my first) and blogger. But to be frank I only joined LiveJournal so that I could read and post comments to a particular person’s LJ site.
While I agree that the initial rush of enthusiasm likely disappears with time, I would further postulate that folks don’t understand how difficult it can be to write, even if it is only a short blurb here and there each week. Writing sounds easy, but I don’t think it really is at all.
Agreed absolutely. The thing with writing is (and this is what I suspect a lot of folk don’t fully appreciate beforehand) its not so much the writing itself (although that can also be a bit of a task sometimes) but what one writes about.
I guess its like most things… some people seem to take to it quite naturally whereas others just don’t get on with it at all.
I used to enjoy writing a fair bit more than I do now and I do not understand what has changed. My style was not dissimilar from yours: friendly, humorous and written as one might speak. But the last couple of years have seen me run into problems with writing.
I suspect my general sense of dissatisfaction with life has had some impact upon writing, but I’m hoping that as I attempt to grab the bull by the horns (so to speak) my writing might come back as well.
I don’t think I’ve quite sussed this writing business yet. I’ve always been a bit of a scribbler but very intermittently. Like I’d write a whole lot over a couple of months or so… then nothing for maybe a year or more. Partly I think because I’ve never consciously looked for something to write as it were, but have written in response to something that’s fired my interest or whatever.
Then I set up this blog… and it seems I bloody well can’t stop. Dunno what it is. Can’t account for it. But it seems like every few days I’m penning something (and sometimes more frequently than that) and its not a case of racking my brains for something.
All this stuff just seems to be there. Babble most of it of course… entirely pointless ramblings. But it amuses me. And that may well be the answer. I suspect I’m not writing now simply because I like writing, but that its become fun.
Part of it could be the medium I s’pose. Though I’ve other blogs and they don’t get anywhere near as much of my attention as this one. Its all very strange.
Possibly its because this blog is notionally focussed around something quite specific… i.e., photography. Or its supposed to be at least. Although I can’t imagine why that should make a difference.
Maybe its something to do with the style I’ve adopted, which is not how I used to, or even customarily, write. Dunno.
Nor do I know how long it may continue. But I’m making the most of it whilst it lasts.
Thanks so much for visiting my photoblog. I’m so glad you liked what you saw. I found your blog a long time ago, perhaps through the WP forums when I had a problem with the Monochrome theme. Have been peeking over your shoulder ever since, and quite enjoying the view!
As for why some bloggers seem to drop off the face of the blogworld? Well, after about 3.5 years, I got drained communicating after adding Twitter to my communication catalog; I think it short-circuited my comm terminals…so I took a break and thought I’d quit altogether.
But I’m back now, having had a chance to recharge. Your pingback to the drying roses post came a couple days before I returned to written blogging…and now I’m catching up with my photoblog. Thanks for the added motivation!
Whoopee! That’s really good news. I actually felt quite mournful when, having discovered your blog, I realised it didn’t appear to have been updated for ages.
I think its so sad when one comes across these once-cared-for remnants of someone’s creative efforts that simply lay, discarded or abandoned.
Good to know you’re back into it again.
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