I was reminded this morning of one of the quotes that came out of the Olympics, for the Brit who won the gold medal in trap shooting. He was stunned by the response to his win, saying that normally, when he trains, he only has a man and his dog for company. No limelight. No sponsorship tie in.
Various magazines are saying similar for the coming back down to earth bit for athletes just now. There is a slump when the next big event is a long way away, when the crowds have gone home, and when your sport goes back to minority interest standard, as far as TV coverage is concerned.
Now you can claim that blogging is the equivalent of 24 hour, multi channel TV. It’s always on. Given the huge numbers of people online, around the world, there’s presumably also an audience. And when you link your posts on Facebook, for example, you have a ready made audience. Should be easy, no?
Some of the others out there doing the 31 days of writing are saying: no. It isn’t.
Because putting writing, any writing, online means that others can like it. Or not. Comment on it. Or not. Forward it to friends. Or, indeed, not. It’s the or nots that are the sapper of souls, because we get caught up in whether we get a response of any kind, rather than in the sharing of the words.
So for me, and for others blogging today, we are likely to feel like we’re only writing for the man and his dog. And the dog wanders off every now and then. But, as I’ve hinted at before, we are also writing for ourselves, the improvement of our writing, the relief of setting words on a page (or screen) and knowing that we said what we came here to say.
Tomorrow, even the man and the dog may not be there. But we will. It’s about the training, the showing up, first.