Ah, the dangers of a freeform blog. A scant few weeks into this adventure and I’m already floundering with blog identity and purpose. Among the questions that are presenting themselves:

What the hell is this blog about?

People want to have a sense of purpose in going to a certain destination, whether virtual or actual. What would anyone’s purpose be in visiting here? Ultimately, I am interested in building an audience. I’ve mouthed the platitudes about this being a personal adventure, and if no one else ever reads it, I can still say I created it, blah, blah, etc. But a bunch of words with no audience is called a journal, and I’m looking for more than that. So should I pick music and run with it? Should I go out and create other sites to categorize my interests? Can I really keep up with multiple blogs and sites? Can I even keep up with one blog that shifts gears so often? Can I break a record and ask 50 questions in a row?

A good tentative suggestion is spending a little extra money on a theme for my blog that effectively treats each category as a separate web page. But if I am only posting once a week on several topics, is that going to ever capture an audience?

On the other hand, I could spend ten hours a day on a focused blog and still not build an audience.

What am I really interested in?

Mainly, I enjoy writing. I enjoy the process of organizing thoughts into written communication. I have several personal tenets that I like to promote: open-mindedness, fairness, empathy, and above all, the precedence of Janet Jackson. If those themes take me into music, politics, or just rambling (as so competently demonstrated here), so be it.

I am fully aware that it is this self-indulgent disregard for focus and structure that separates hacks from media pros.

How serious am I?

“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams.” That Thoreau quote was bandied about on Facebook this week, and it serves as a hateful little reminder that I never really did that. If I had any guts at all, the logic goes, I would quit my job and work tirelessly to make this writing thing work. But you know what, my life isn’t so bad. I like my job, I treasure my relationships, and I enjoy my free time. Something would definitely have to give for me to pour extra energy into this endeavor.

So there you have it, dear reader(s), my entire body of insecurities laid bare. There are no easy answers. Sometimes, though, you just have to keep on keeping
on. Fake it until you make it. A great number of successful people have simply stumbled along cluelessly in the direction of their dreams and found their niche.

Maybe one day that’ll be me. Stay tuned.