Top Ten Tuesday: Blogging Confessions

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and The Bookish. It's a fun weekly link-up with a provided prompt where entertaining list-making ensues.

I've been watching and reading Top Ten Tuesday on a few blogs for quite a few months. Since I've been slacking off on my posting, this seemed like a good time (and a good topic) for me to jump in on and start participating. This week the topic is blogging confessions. Heaven knows I have a few of those.


1. My blog is just like me...erratic. (Pieces of this will pretty much show up in confessions 2-10. Beware.)

I have good intentions. Really...I do. But sometimes the best laid plans just fall apart. Life gets to be a little overwhelming and I just melt and shut down. When that happens, it all goes to crap. No projects, no blog. And then I'll get back on the horse and knock that shit out of the park. So I'm here and then occasionally I'm gone (like the last couple of weeks where I've been semi-MIA). But just like me, the blog bounces back. And so do the projects. And I keep my fingers crossed that my readers won't bail on me during those time periods when I'm just such a horrible flake.


2. I go through phases of craftiness...in different genres...like a spaz.

This is why I liked my approach of dedicating different topics to different months. Sometimes I'm on a sewing kick, sometimes scrapbooking, sometimes reading. I think I'll keep the month to month themes, but maybe just not plan them ahead so much anymore. That kind of slapped me in the face when Pinterest project month hit and all I wanted to do was read.


3. I don't (and never will) review all of the books I read on my blog.

Sometimes I just don't have that much to say. I'll put a little blurb on everything I complete when I post my finish on Goodreads, but they won't always make it here in full review form...even if I love them. That's just the way I go.


4. I can be obsessive about my stats.

I like to click the little stats tab and find out where my readers are coming from. I also like to see how many reads come in on any given day, week, month. Occasionally this backfires and I get totally forlorn over the days when those stats drop. Usually this is due to me not writing anything for a day or two...so, duh that would happen...but it still makes me momentarily sad.


5. There are bloggers I love to read, but rarely comment on...because I freak out.

I read a lot of blogs. A lot. And I really do read their posts. But I rarely comment even though I feel utterly guilty about not leaving a little blip. Why? Because I don't want to post something dumb and look stupid later. Petty? Yes. Totally true? Oh you betcha. This is also why I struggle responding to comments on my own blog. (Confession within a confession...I'm asocial and completely socially awkward. This extends to my blogging persona sometimes. It's kind of a crippling issue on occasion. Just know that if you leave a comment, I read it and totally appreciate it. I just may not know how to respond without feeling like a fool.)


6. I frequently covet other bloggers' layouts.

I like a cute blog. That's just the way it goes. I read most blog posts via Feedly, so I don't really see blog homepages all that often, but there are just some people who have a knack. I need to work on craftier graphics and I seriously want to start figuring out how to find gifs to put in my posts. Sometimes those just make my day.


7. I scrap a lot of posts.

Somewhere around 1/3 of my posts never see the publish button. I'll get a post halfway written and then just decide that it's utter crap...or not what I had in mind for that day, or whatever. There's always an excuse. In most of these cases, I just select it all and hit delete. Sometimes I hit save and make it into a useful post on another day, but this is a rarity. I keep telling myself I need to be better creating drafts because there have been times where it's really been a bummer to realize a week and a half later that the post I had nearly finished would have worked great for next Tuesday with just a little editing.


8. I like doing crafty posts. I just need to do more crafts...or maybe just remember to take pictures of the ones I do.

Some of my favorite posts are project posts...the ones that turned into tutorials. But I am a horrid planner in the case of crafts. I don't know why, but I just get the whim to create, start a project, finish it, and then realize ten minutes later that I didn't take a single picture and now really can't use it for a full post on the blog. It's dumb and I do it all the time. Three...three...Christmases have gone this way. That's something like ninety projects that I could have posted on here if I wasn't such a ninny. It's not like I don't own like ten cameras. You'd think I would remember to take a freaking picture once in a while.


9. I have contemplated splitting the blog into two.

EPJ has been around for a while. And I like it. It works for me. But I worry that it doesn't always work for my readers. There has been more than once that I've considered creating a second blog just for the reading stuff. But then I panic and worry that I won't devote enough time to each one if I do that and I'll just be spreading myself too thin or alienating my readers. (If you have an opinion on this one, I'll totally take it. This is a more constant mental debate recently.)


10. I really want this blog to grow readers, but I'd probably keep doing it even if no one read it.

EPJ is a good creative outlet for me. I love that there are people who enjoy it and there are some regular readers who I consider to be pretty good friends even though I don't know them outside of the blogosphere. In all honestly, I'd love to have one of those blogs that has thousands of readers, but I'll still enjoy it if it stays small. I just need some way to put all this stuff out there and if only one or two people really like it enough to keep reading, I guess that's okay by me. I enjoy the validation, but I'm happy to say that I still blog mostly for myself. I hope it always stays that way.