Recently I talked about the new routines we’re trying to find, with the kids back to school for the first time in some five months, my wife returning to work, and me on an ever evolving part-office part-home work schedule.
Another factor is finding new rhythms to write for 35hunter.
It’s early days, and I do have a new regular two hour slot on Wednesday when my son is at gym, but otherwise it’s still a little hand to mouth with the blogging currently.
One thing I don’t like is making less time for responding to comments, and feeling I’m getting behind.
Ideally I would like to reply to comments the same day or the next, to keep the conversations fresh and flowing.
This is a major part of blogging for me, connecting with others who share interests and ideas, rather than some one way vanity project or showcase for my photographs, writing, or both.
At this stage I want to continue to post every 48 hours, as I’m certainly not short of ideas, with 187 drafts and counting in WordPress.
I just need to find my routines again.
But I want to prioritise the replies more, and if that ultimately means writing fewer new posts, then so be it.
How about you? If you’re a blogger, how much time do you spend on writing and publishing versus replying to comments?
As a reader, what are your expectations of the author when you leave a comment on a blog?
Please let us know in the comments below (and don’t forget to tick the “Notify me of new comments via email” box to follow the conversation).
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35hunter 
Part of why I don’t blog more regularly/frequently is because so many times I feel like I haven’t had the chance to leave remarks /catch up with my circle on WP (“getting behind”). It’s part of my own, personal social bargain that comes with journaling on the web. But I don’t have expectations anymore when it comes to leaving comments on other journals/blogs. I like to be acknowledged, that always feels nice. But over the years I’ve come to fully accept I can’t attach any expectations to others. There’s a million different reasons someone may have for not wanting to reciprocate let alone acknowledge me as a person. The internet is a weird place and people are coming from all over. And I do say a lot of stupid-sounding things and a lot of times I’m over-eager, probably. No one has any way of knowing that I’m dorky but harmless. So when I leave a note, I really only tend to do so from as courteous, honest place as possible with no expectations in return.
Responding in a timely manner to comments has always been hard for me. There’s a lot going on for me in daily life. Im not a good time manager at all. I have relatively little personal time. And I’ve got a tendency to process things very slowly. those things all spell doom (and grammar mistakes in my remarks). But the people I know on WP are important to me and I love conversation from my posts, even if they’re just random observations. Sometimes it takes one, two or even three days to answer someone. I really hate that. It used to be that I wouldn’t even moderate a comment until I had a chance to answer but I had to stop doing that so people wouldn’t feel like I was callously ignoring them. Keeping good balance n my life means for me I’m not very good at social media. there’s nothing I can really do about it
It can be a bit of a cycle I feel sometimes. If I don’t write new stuff I won’t encourage any new comments. But If I don’t respond in a timely manner to existing comments, I’ll lose the trust and patience and good will of those who’ve taken the time to connect. The latter feels far more important, but if we do this too much, we have no new content. I don’t know, it’s a balancing act, like so much in life, as you know!
I think what I could remind myself is I can’t do everything in one day or one evening. I can’t write two blog posts, watch a film with my wife and read for an hour to each of the (three) kids in a couple of hours each evening. But I could do all of those things over four or five evenings, and give each my full attention when I do.
My blog isn’t as popular as your James. 😃 I get less than a 100 visitors per blog post. I do my best to post at least once per day but there are times when I have nothing to say and nothing gets posted. There are aslo times where I can’t “shut up” and I post three times in a day.
100 views on a post is good going for me too! Some have had far less, but the few that have most, have far more, strangely, and these draw attention to the others. Well, hopefully, that’s the plan. I like a stable habit with posting, like I’m expending my time and energy slowly and steadily rather than in fits and starts. I don’t know, I just like that with many things, consistency.
My blog is young and quite small compared to yours. I have settled into a routine of once a week which for me is doable, and which doesn’t exhaust my supply of postable images too quickly…..however it looks like I may find myself being more retired soon, I work in support of the airline industry so the timing of me being eligible for the pension next month is quite fortunate. If I do find myself not working there will certainly be a period of adjusting to a new routine, or perhaps the lack of a routine…..more time for photography if I can just get on top of the list my wife seems to have in her head 😉
Ha ha, know what you mean about that list!
Interesting you say about having enough images. I try to post new stuff if I have it, but if not I just delve in the archives. I figure that most people reading won’t know/care that an image is months or years old.