Ah, my poor neglected blog. If this blog was a dog it would be rescued by the RSPCB (Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Blogs). This blog is the equivalent of a starving mange-ridden dog kept chained to a post in a dirty back yard, its fur matted, slipping around in its own filth, shivering with neglect and fear.
I shouldn’t be allowed to keep a blog. All I can do is hang my head in shame.
Like all bad blog owners, I have the usual feeble excuses. I’ve been busy. Too busy to feed your blog, you monster?
I know, I know. What’s so important that you can’t find time now and then to show your blog a little love and attention?
I could promise that I’ll do better in future. But you know and I know that I won’t keep the promise. I might start off on the right track, with an intense, over-compensatory burst of activity. Then gradually, the posts will get shorter, and less frequent, until it tails off into the same old void of nothingness.
It’s a familiar pattern of neglect and blog abuse. I feel bad, full of shame and remorse. But it doesn’t seem that there is anything I can do about it. I’m just a bad person.
What makes it worse is that the only time I show my blog any attention at all is when I want something out of it. When I have something to promote, in other words. And yes, that’s what’s brought me back to it today.
I’m doing an event at Victoria Library in London on Monday 9 June, at 6.00 pm, with DE Meredith and Judith Flanders. The event is called Crimes of the Times and there’s more about it here.
Oh, God, I’m sorry. I feel so terrible. How can you ever forgive me, Blog? I’ll make it up to you, honest I will. Soon, soon, I’ll write in you everyday… I promise…
Oh my God, if I felt bad before I read this, you can only imagine how bad I feel now. Don’t even think of going to my blog. It’s heartbreaking. It doesn’t even stir for promotional purposes. It may be definitively dead. Whatever you do, don’t give its IP address to the RSPCB. I couldn’t take the shame of the exposure. Every word here is an act of betrayal. Why did you do this, Roger?
Oh right, Victoria Library on 9 June. Unfortunately I’ll be at an Evening with Charles Lambert at Waterstones Piccadilly that very evening! Just don’t tell my blog. Promise?
We are bad people. It’s shame our events clash too – for so many reasons!
This is precisely the reason I’ve yet to launch my blog. I fear that I’ll neglect it horribly. That said, I will birth my blog soon enough and hopefully I’ll mind her well. Maybe we can keep each other accountable in that way. Ha!