The status of the blogger

Some of you have (hopefully) missed me and been wondering why I haven't posted this week.

I wish I had a good reason, like I was away on business in some exotic city somewhere, or going undercover to ferret out a ring of sexy Russian spies (I applied, but they told me that they were already doing a good job with it and didn't need me). Or maybe just doing some big project that left me little time for something as small as blogging (though remember, there are no small bloggers!)

But I can't say that. Instead, I can only say that I've been suffering a huge bout of "What the hell do I write about?" and a huge feeling of inertia. Lately, most of the topics that have been occurring to me are related to video games, and specifically to hardcore gaming (in other words, of even less interest to my normal reader here than most of my other video game posts). Thus, I've been posting those to my Game Informer blog (if you're a gamer, you should really check it out!) We've formed a nice community over there, and the feedback has been a lot more than I get here. I do love my readers in both places, of course, and those of you who comment here are highly-treasured (I'm not including family in this because, while I love your comments too, I would treasure you even if you weren't commenting).

The "What the hell do I write about?" disease has painfully coincided with the "Does anybody really care anyway?" paranoia that grips me from time to time. Both of these are quite common, actually, but they have never hit me at the same time before. When I get the "What the hell do I write about?" symptoms, I usually feel that there is enough interest out there that I owe you readers *something* and put it out there. Even if it's just a comment on a Mashable article or something. When I get the "Does anybody really care anyway?" feeling, I at least have topics that interest *me*, so I figure why not post them anyway? If nobody does care, at least maybe somebody will find it on a Google search or something.

But when both hit me, it's kind of devastating. I go through a kind of writing paralysis, that "Why should I bother, if nobody cares anyway and I don't have anything to write about?" Why force it?

On the other hand, will the readers who do read my stuff fall away if nothing comes for a little while? I think of how truly giddy I felt when one of my friends left a comment on one of my posts, just out of the blue, and she said that she read my blog regularly. I had no idea! And that just really made my day (well, night, since that's when I saw the comment). I felt giddy for the rest of the night. So thank you, reader who shall remain anonymous for now.

I also got an email from another person who I had no idea was reading, but she sent me an email about one of my posts. I go back and read that email every once in a while, when I need some encouragement that somebody's out there.

Ah well. I'm sure this feeling will pass. But for now, I need a little help. What would you like to see as a topic? Is there anything you want to know, or want my opinion on? Other than "does this dress make me look fat?" Sorry, I'm not going there. But anything else, I'm willing to consider! Or you can drop me a question on Formspring (the link's on the side of this blog). I haven't had one of those in a while.

Don't worry. Even in my current stasis, tomorrow's one-hit wonders post is coming as planned.

There has to be some regularity in life, doesn't there?