Here’s what I’ve got so far for my illustrious new essay on people who don’t think their blogs are good enough to read:

The particular writing paradox I want to address is illustrated succinctly by this quote from a blog post entitled “Here We Go Again,” from The Matticus Kingdom:

I’d really like to be able to make a living doing this writing thing and I’m hoping this blog will be a good platform to learn and grow as a writer, test my abilities, and build up a following.  Though, I’m not sure who would be silly enough to actually enjoy anything I write.

I’ve seen it said a hundred different ways and the first time I saw it was on my own blog, probably twelve different ways in twelve different posts that I posted on the same day.

Most everyone who blogs has at least considered making money from writing. I’m going to go so far as to say that most everyone who blogs fancies themselves a writer. And everyone knows these days that whatever you’re doing, you should probably have a following, a tribe, a platform. But how the hell do you do that? Well, you probably type that question into Google and spend the next three hours learning how to create a following. Then you don’t do anything about it for another week. Then you sit down to write some of your novel and you think, shit, I should probably have a following. Then you wonder why you haven’t been blogging all week.

Well, that’s one way things can go. Another way is you have those ideas in the back of your head, about a platform and this and that, and you think, well shit, I’m going to just write whatever I want on this blog. No one can stop me! But then you’re pretty sure that’s a bad idea. No one gets a following that way. Like Seth Godin says, are you sure what you’re saying is interesting, or is it just interesting to you? Well, if you’re a writer and you probably are, you’re probably pretty sure nothing you have to say is interesting, except those things that you work really hard on and edit and revise and you’re working on that, it’s coming out next summer, you swear!

Well that’s it. It sounds like a god damn preface to writing blogs for dummies. How did I get so detached from the subject? How did me become you? How did I lose the feeling…how did I lose the subject for that matter? I’m talking about this cycle that happens to me, not what I mean to be talking about which is this widespread belief that what you’re writing isn’t fit for reading. What you’re writing? What we’re writing? Shit! This is hard.