blogging thoughts - vanity, quality, & the pursuit of what, exactly?

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I have been concerned with blog posts all week... or the lack thereof.  I know a lot of bloggers who, when giving advice to new bloggers, say that quantity is not as important as quality.  I haven't had a lot of quality, blog-worthy topics to offer this week.

This is not an apology (which many bloggers frown upon).  This is merely a thought process, put out to the public, so it is subject to change.  It should also be noted that this is also not a forfeit.

Erin's first entry in her Building A Blog series -- the first! -- is "Why Do You Blog."  I thought my answer to this was easy:  Because I want to document my life in some way, shape or form.  Because I want to share things.  Because I want to look back in one place and see my progression, maybe one day my kids will see it and read it and be interested in who I was at the time.

That's all fine and good, but I have a difficult time wondering what makes the blogosphere the right venue for that.  It seems to match all of my (somewhat minimal) criteria:

1) Easy, streamlined process (for both writing and photos). 
2) Easily accessible: able to share it easily with friends and family
3) A venue that is constantly brimming with inspiring people, photos and projects.

However, there's a certain bit of exhibitionism I feel that comes along with blogging, a kind of vanity that I seem to fluctuate between having and abhorring.  I'll admit it -- I'm a little vain.  But only a little bit, and I'm not sure my vanities coincide with the aesthetic of the type of blog I admire.

If you look over there, on the right, there's a list of blogs I read.  Most are lifestyle blogs, some are fashion blogs, some are craft blogs.  My blog?  I want my blog to reflect who I am -- a somewhat sporratic, dorky (and oftentimes pretty ridiculous) girl who likes pretty things and silly things and typically anti-mainstream things... yet my online reading material for the most part could be considered "mainstream" for the lifestyle blog world.  I'm getting my inspiration from sources that are not like me.  Some will say that that's a good thing; you don't want to read too much stuff like your own stuff, it's good to branch out, etc.  But there seem to be few blogs that cross over with my "subculture" to begin with, and I can't help but feel like a bit of a wallflower at times.

I'll wear the dress, I'll bop my head, but no one has asked me to dance just yet.

And that's cool, I'm not necessarily asking to be a high-falootin', big deal, gettin' all the free stuff and having giveaways and 1 billion subscribers kind of blogger.  But I have to wonder sometimes about my choice of venue.

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Because of my fluctuations in vanity, where I go from being okay standing outside and taking pictures of 
myself on my balcony to thinking "who the hell cares, and why is this important?" what is the difference between, say, keeping a diary?  A scrapbook or photo album?  What keeps me from being the girl who takes all the photos, prints 'em, puts them in a pretty, customized, artsy-fartsy pretty book and uses them as coffee table material? 

I could easily live behind a camera lens, much more comfortably (at least most of the time) than in front of it. I also don't feel very interesting on a day to day basis.  I see all of these bloggers who seem to never struggle for content, who are so active and bright and always wearing cute shoes and seem to have all of this time on their hands to focus on their blog, and I will admit:  I get envious.  And then I look at my blog (collections of things I found online, some garage sale finds, etc.) and I feel...

Well... I feel boring.

What keeps me from just keeping a damn diary is that I am a little exhibitionistic and I want to share my life and talk to people about things that I write about and the little moments and the fun things and the important things and the weird things.  I want to have an outlet that can have the potential to create a dialogue.  Technology makes this easy.

But the community?  I think I need to seriously reprioritize and put the envy fire OUT.  I have to make a conscious effort to remind myself:  I don't do this for the free shoes or the sponsors.  I don't do this for the pageviews.  I don't do this for anyone but myself, and whoever wants to talk about things I'm into with me.  I do not need to adhere to rules like "post often!" and "if you want followers, post these types of things!"

I need to re-prioritize.  I need to really figure out what this blog is -- and more importantly, what it isn't.  What I want out of it, what I want it to be, and do it on my own terms.

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I'm sorry if that's all over the place; I realize this could be broken down into several different thought-heavy, thorough posts, but I just needed to get it out and put it out there.  I've started so many projects that have never finished because of an unclear trajectory (or lack of drive to clarify it's direction), and I don't want this to be one of them.