This is my Confession

I think I have mentioned this before, but it could have been a draft post that I made but never posted.

In any case, this is me, Alex Laybourne, and this is my confession.

Just this morning, I was posting about an award nomination I got, and as part of it, I had to nominate three other blogs to receive the award. I was staggered when I ran into such difficulty in naming three blogs.

I had never thought about it before, but most of my interaction and friendships with other writers is built around Facebook and Twitter conversations.

Similarly, I nominated three friends for an award just last month and didn’t want to nominate the same three people again. Not that they didn’t deserve it, but I like to share my appreciation with others too.

They say to be a writer, you need to be a reader. I couldn’t agree more with this statement. I don’t think it is possible to be one without the other. I write a lot, and read a lot. They go hand in hand and compliment each other perfectly.

When it comes to blogging however, while I feel the same theory should be used, I fail miserably.

I start out with the very best of intentions, I follow a great many blogs all of which I really want to read… most of them at least, and I flag all of the posts as they come in. I just fail to sit down and read them. Why? I don’t know. That is the problem. I really don’t know. It is just some sort of mental block I have.

There are a couple of blogs that I read every post of, but that is not enough. It is like only reading books by one author, it does help you, but after a while you hit the limit of your potential, unless you broaden your horizons.

I have tried setting aside time in the day to read blogs, but then I often find myself either forgetting or having to sacrifice something to accommodate the rest of my rather hectic daily schedule.

I do think that the first step I need to take is to unfollow a few blogs. Not because the content is bad, or because I don’t like them, but rather because, I don’t have time to read them all, and seeing the list growing longer and longer in my email folder seems to make it all the more daunting. Also, I feel sorry for the bloggers themselves. I have marked myself down as a follower yet actually do little more than accumulate emails from them. I would hardly call it a follower. Perhaps I should just need a much better system.

I understand that to develop my own blog, I need to read blogs, to comment on blogs, but really, I want to read more blogs simply because I am eager to learn. To improve myself. I promise to you all, that from today, I will make a much better effort to read more blog posts, not just from you, my friends, but on a much broader spectrum.

Until now, I have had no strategy in my blog reading. I am not good with Google. I can use it of course, but only on basic levels. For finding things like blogs, and interesting hangouts, I suck… big time.

No matter what way I look at it, what excuses I try to use to cover up my failings, the long and the short of it is, I do not do enough work when it comes to reading blogs, and I should do.

I will do.

I promise