You write! But who reads?

DISCLAIMER – With this I have made little amendments to my ‘About THE Muser‘ page too.

“Maybe this is why we read, and why in moments of darkness we return to books: to find words for what we already know”
― Alberto Manguel

You usually do not find something which you do not know. It was always there in your sub-conscious mind or it either is a reminder or a new perspective of someone.

Many of you must have noticed me liking or most of the times, commenting on your posts within last three weeks. Yes, I have been doing this, going through your writings, for last three weeks, spending one to two hours daily, excluding the weekends. This is because I opened my ‘Following’ list and went onto every blog to go through their recent posts, mostly top one or two. Many of you might have spotted me doing so, for some of you it might have been just any other comment, and few of you might have not even noticed them yet as you haven’t responded to them. I did all this just to ensure all of you that I am still following you i.e. reading you which is this platform is all about and most of all assuring myself that I am REALLY following these people.

Actually there definitely is some issue with WordPress feed-page. I spend almost an hour reading your posts daily but this ‘Readers’ page hardly shows me your latest posts. The only posts I get to see, that too repeatedly, are of ‘Millionaire’s Digest’. Though I like this blog but this is NOT the ONLY blog I like. There are many other writings which I miss just because my feed-page doesn’t show them. I don’t know what it does by keeping your writings by itself. Do you have any idea?

Well, after a lot of procrastination, I could finally pull the lazy myself up from my bed and get onto check each blog, individually. And as I expected I really did miss many of the amazing writings. But another thing that I did, which was not pre-planned, I clicked that ‘Following’ button to stop following few blogs too. Most of the times because they were not active for last three to five months or more. Other times the reason of doing so was the kind of writings, the writings I would not read in general. Not because they are not good, but only because my keen interest is in ‘Writing’ related blogs. So, I stopped following many ‘only‘ photography or culinary or fashion or ‘only’ poetry blogs too (as I am more of a story person). When I was a newbie I must have followed these blogs hoping for the same gesture back from them. This kind of thinking flows naturally to a newbie but as we grow old in this blogosphere we realize that we better not make this a number-game.

No offence to any photography, sketching, lifestyle, fashion blogs and the blogs created for other reasons, but over here I am being particular about the blogs where ‘writing’ is the main focus, especially stories. Not all but most of us write for our audience. Right? We try to put our best foot forward in order to not to disappoint anyone. Don’t we?

But what makes me wonder is, does anybody REALLY read it?

“I can’t write without a reader. It’s precisely like a kiss—you can’t do it alone”
― John Cheever

John was wise to realize this and wiser to spread his wisdom.

Most of the times what we all do is, come across a new blog, explore that blog, and if it comes out as per our expectations, we follow it; this marks the end of the story, which actually should be the start.
Oh! How pretty is the look of this blog.
Oh! How innovative is this story that she has written.
Oh! How witty is his ‘About’ page.
And here goes the click on that fancy FOLLOW button. But to be honest, how many of us RE-visit the blog that had that huge impact on us? In fact do we even remember that we ever encountered such blog? I don’t know for you but yes, it has happened with me.All I want to say is Follow what you really want to read in future, and try to not to get involved in a number-game over here, as for many of us the comments that you provide, that LIKE button you click on, really matter.

Make that Follow button on a blog the start, not the end.

To all those who write for others, remember – someone else is doing the same for you.
Don’t confine yourself up to writing only. Do read, do learn, do teach and you will grow gradually.

I know some of you would read this post and understand my concern, some won’t be able to because this ‘feed-page’ problem is general I guess, and many won’t even read it because just like me (though not now) they also followed me just for the sake of following.

I don’t want to sound bumptious but please don’t follow me if you are not going to read me. For me, each and every follower of mine matters.

“Readers are not sheep, and not every pen tempts them”
― Vladimir Nabokov

So yes, I will understand.

Don’t you feel reading and writing go hand-in-hand? Feel free to share your views. 🙂

P.S. – There are those also who have followed me but due to some reasons I couldn’t check out their blog yet. But I will definitely get through this task too, very soon.

                          No credits for images used.
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