Ever meta blogger?

I’ve been reading a lot of blogs about blogging. I know, it’s very meta. There are two obvious components to the blogs of professional writers, which discourage me from joining the ranks:

1. They’re snobby. They blog about having too many friend requests on facebook, millions of messages in their inbox and an overabundance of people who want to glean a drop of their intelligence or creativity. All this in an attempt to advise on managing time or effective social networking. But I see the real message: you’re not successful until the number of people who follow you on twitter is equal to the factorial of the number you follow. (hugely impressive=me!)

2. They give things away. To promote traffic and comments on their blog, they regularly feature a “good friend” whose book they will give away, or they solicit guest bloggers and give away blog posting slots. This would be acceptable, if you’re a dedicated blogger who churns out quality posts at least daily. A nice respite every once in awhile for a genuine “good friend” or to take the focus off you and your writing would be admirable. But if it’s just a ploy to optimize your site, we readers are onto you.

Perhaps my aversion to these things reveals what might be the unseen third component to writers who blog:

3. They compare themselves to other writers and lose confidence as the RSS feeds them bloggers who write better, about more interesting things, endorsed by famous people, and are read and admired by mobs of devotees. So then they blog about why they’re better than those bloggers. A vicious cycle, really.