Earlier this evening Alli wrote a thought-provoking posting here entitled Overheard on #Blogchat: Love Your Blog! but the more I think about it, the more I think that’s not such good advice after all.

Let me explain before y’all get your knickers in a twist…

I find a lot of personal blogs to be boring. There, I’ve said it.

I know that to the writer, it’s a great experience, cathartic, therapeutic, and perhaps even the first time you’ve been able to speak your mind regardless of the consequences. That’s great, and I’m happy for you.

But as a reader, well, uhm, unless I know you and understand the travails and challenges of your life, it’s just not particularly interesting. D’ya know what I mean?

It’s like Twitter. There are great tweets but there are sooooo many that are tedious, narcissistic trivia. That’s why I’ve learned to ignore most of my twitter stream. Your fabulous burger might be interesting to you, but to me? I haven’t even been to your city, why would I care?

Alright, I’m being a bit cranky here. I own it. But I’d like to suggest that instead of falling in love with your blog and sinking into an inability to tear your gaze away from that beautiful person in the mirror, why not think about how you can love your reader instead?

That’s my alternative suggestion for a core philosophy: write to your reader, ask your reader questions, reference your reader and you might just be surprised that while you can address most of the same topics, the level of engagement goes up dramatically.

Then again, why not check out my most personal blog – The Attachment Parenting  Blog – and see what you think. Boring because it’s too self-indulgent, or an interesting read as I try to balance what’s interesting to read with what I want to write about?