I wanna love You better whatever it takes . . .

I have serious blogging insecurities. I check my stats compulsively, searching desperately for any sign of an increase in readership.  

(and yes, WordPress, I STILL MISS MY FEED STATS!!!)

People who know far less about the internet than I do don’t assume that I am in any way deficient blog-wise . . . but that’s because they wouldn’t know a blog if it came up and bit them on the @$$.

It doesn’t help when I see my report stating that on my “best day ever”, I got 50 hits. There is a woman who writes a blog that is primarily about dog shit (granted, it’s about dog shit in one specific neighborhood in Brooklyn, but still . . . ) and I just read today that she gets 10,000 hits daily. (it’s actually a really good blog!)

 A couple of weeks ago, I noticed that some of the women whose blogs I read regularly were attending a conference for woman bloggers. I thought, “hmm, maybe I should go to that next year”–but then, in sizing up the people who were attending, I had a new fit of insecurity . . . “I’m totally not cool enough to hang out with the ladies who blog.” (is that like “ladies who lunch” for the 21st century?)

I thought I had gotten over my high school insecurities about people not liking me, but apparently not. And I am so afraid that my utter social incompetence is somehow spilling over to the online world . . . (if you’re socially incompetent in a sea of people who spend five hours a day on the internet, I’m thinking there’s not a lot of hope . . . )

But it’s more than “just” wanting to fit in . . . it’s the same thing that I’ve always struggled with–WANTING TO KNOW THAT SOMEBODY IS READING. Without that, why would we even write? and I truly believe that, as someone who has always favored feature writing, I was born to blog . . .

so what am I doing wrong? even if you never comment, this is when I really need to hear from you . . . which of the following things do you think is holding me back from blogging greatness? Choose as many as apply.

Should I . . .

a) Pick one topic and stick with it
b) Edit posts more carefully/work harder at quality of entries
c) Network more and “get my name out” to other blogs
d) Be funnier
e) Post more pictures 
f) Be patient; it takes time to build up a following! 
g) Promote myself more in my “real life” circles? (business cards with my blog name on them?!)
h) Get a life and stop caring about it
i) Repent of my blog idolatry
j) stop trying so hard on the theory that I shouldn’t want to belong to a club that would want me as a member
k) other_________________________________________