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Bad news for the increasingly weakening “blogosphere” — and good news for readers of good, old fashioned books that aren’t written in a hurry. Andrew Sullivan, the writer, editor and blogging pioneer announced that he has quit blogging. Here’s some of what he wrote on his blog:
Why? Two reasons. The first is one I hope anyone can understand: although it has been the most rewarding experience in my writing career, I’ve now been blogging daily for fifteen years straight (well kinda straight). That’s long enough to do any single job. In some ways, it’s as simple as that. There comes a time when you have to move on to new things, shake your world up, or recognize before you crash that burn-out does happen.
And, yes, burnout is a major problem with blogs, getting people to continue to write on blogs and keeping talented people as bloggers (especially in the age of Facebook and Twitter which takes a lot less time and effort). A hobby can become a job and what becomes a job can become a job that controls you. Sullivan also never slapped anything together: his blog writing was of exceptional quality, he made his case on issues passionately and even became that rarity: someone blogging who ACTUALLY EVOLVED and changed his position on some issues and didn’t just chant tiresome political mantras. Like virtually anyone who does opinion pieces he had his…opinions…and those who disagree will hate him because he doesn’t see things his way(that’s the 21st century American Way). But he always tried to lay out why he felt a certain way, adjusted some positions, and didn’t just run a laundry list of trite catch phrases seemingly lifted from listening to a left or right radio or cable talker. Plus: he was an established writer and editor. And journalism background on a blog can help. MORE:
The second is that I am saturated in digital life and I want to return to the actual world again. I’m a human being before I am a writer; and a writer before I am a blogger, and although it’s been a joy and a privilege to have helped pioneer a genuinely new form of writing, I yearn for other, older forms. I want to read again, slowly, carefully. I want to absorb a difficult book and walk around in my own thoughts with it for a while. I want to have an idea and let it slowly take shape, rather than be instantly blogged. I want to write long essays that can answer more deeply and subtly the many questions that the Dish years have presented to me. I want to write a book.
And, again, YES. People who blog have this problem. Yours truly has a novel and a nonfiction book and is now on the second part of a North American (US and Canada) tour in my nonwriting incarnation. Between the travel (last time I did this tour I drove 49,000 miles in 9 months), doing events, trying to keep TMV updated and doing the weekly column for Cagle Cartoons, the long form project has faltered. And I have to choose between enough sleep or doing the project (as of Feb I’ll choose doing the lively novel no matter what).
I want to spend some real time with my parents, while I still have them, with my husband, who is too often a ‘blog-widow’, my sister and brother, my niece and nephews, and rekindle the friendships that I have simply had to let wither because I’m always tied to the blog. And I want to stay healthy. I’ve had increasing health challenges these past few years. They’re not HIV-related; my doctor tells me they’re simply a result of fifteen years of daily, hourly, always-on-deadline stress. These past few weeks were particularly rough – and finally forced me to get real.
And, again, yes: I know people who in blogging became so consumed with answering trolls in comments that they quite blogging and almost had breakdowns. I’ve talked to people who got death threats from those who disagree and I’ve seen cases where marriages fell apart. I’ve seen people who realized they had to choose between family and blogging and met some who without conceptualizing it made a choice and later felt perhaps it was the wrong one.
And I’ve met and emailed people who felt their partisan and ideological positions were gold and if anyone dared write something on their blog they were traitors or liars. The milk of human kindness is not a big component of political blogging.
But, perhaps most of all, I’ve often talked to or emailed writers who felt a blog post would really change minds, or influence an election.
In that, Sullivan was correct: he was influential in his magazine writing and editing, newspaper columns and in The Dish of getting people to think because he wasn’t just vomiting up partisan or ideological mantras. And because of that, some will detest him.
I’ll let him know something he may not know: many of us here at TMV, in all of TMV’s many generations of writers who’ve excited come and in some cases quietly withdrawn, he was the single most admired blogger.
We wish him well in this exciting new chapter in his life — and feel very sad to see the previous one end.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.