Recovered from the Wayback Machine.
I was rather stunned this morning to read a good-bye message from Lauren at Feministe:
After almost exactly six years as a blogger, about three of them at this domain, I believe it’s time for me to bow out. My dedication to my writing here has waned and I am tired of the oddly daunting responsibility of owning a website that runs significant traffic with my name attached. Running this blog takes far more time and dedication than I’d like to admit, and it’s time and dedication I can no longer afford to expend now that I am out of college. This is a decision I made some time ago and grappled with up until I hit publish on this post.
As Lauren goes on to say, blogging can be difficult, time consuming, and frustrating. It can also be discouraging when works that take time go unremarked, while a quick link to a silly joke pushes your Technorati profile up 400 points.
I think when you emotionally invest of yourself in your site, as Lauren has done–creating long, thoughtful essays, and caring about what you publish, in addition to your audience’s reaction–you either reach a point where you have to take a break, change how you run your site, or quit; sometimes, all three.
Some writers, such as Jonathon Delacour take very long breaks whenever needed. Others, such as myself and many of you, change the site, the focus, take shorter breaks, or whatever to keep the sites from breaking us down–to keep the fun still in the game. Unfortunately, there are those, like Lauren, who believe the only course they have is to quit. I can certainly understand the desire, or need, to quit, though I am unhappy to see someone like Lauren go.
I will miss you, kiddo.
