Sacramento has always been a town that's more about family than it is about friends.  I do have a couple of friends in town but most of them are gone during the Christmas break (working in state government) so even when I'm up there for the Holiday I don't get to see them.

The one exception is my friend Todd who does IT consulting in the area.  He'd encouraged me to start a blog for sometime (which is odd since he doesn't have one) so now that I had something to show I was excited to see him over my Christmas vacation (not that I'm not normally but you get the idea).  His first question: "So how many subscribers do you have so far?" 

To which I answered "I dunno"

Ever have someone give you a look that says "I thought you were smart but now I'm not so sure?"  I have....

I quickly jumped to my own defense telling him that I did understand the concept of Feedburner and that it wasn't that I didn't know how to check my subscribers it was that I choose not to.  This statement, as you might guess, earned me another look. 

I think the hardest thing for someone who is not a writer to do when starting a blog is to find their voice.  In a world where people communicate primarily through IM, 3 sentence e-mails and 140 character text messages the adjustment from quick responses to long form thought can be tricky.  But if you become fixated on statistics that job becomes all but impossible.

Incessant thoughts of "I posted this and lost a subscriber" or "2 people subscribed when I posted this" would eventually drive a person crazy and in doing so ruin any chance of that person (in this case me) developing a unique voice.  Sadly you can't be yourself while simultaneously trying to cater to everyone who might disagree with you.

This post marks the beginning of my second month of public blogging and I honestly still don't think I quite have the hang of it.   So to anyone who might be offended by my not checking these various statistics I apologize.  It isn't that I don't care (I appreciate anyone who subscribes or throws me a link) its just that, right now at least, I can't be honest and check all that stuff at the same time.