Excuse me for sounding like something out of a Hallmark special, but you guys mean a lot to me. I'm serious.
The first few months of this blog are terrrible, I know. I wasn't the happiest person on earth at the time. But at some point, I decided that 'depression be damned,' and proceeded to at least try and write something interesting every day. I spent most of the time alone in my dorm watching bad television so it wasn't always easy, but eventually I got the hang of it. And you know what? It really helped. It realy helped when people started linking back to me, and when people starting linking to me first. At times, blogs would be the only contact I had with anyone.
There are people on the sidebar whom I've made no contact with except for adding their names to the sidebar. I respond to emails, and chat online occasionally, but that's about it. I don't remember the last time I left a comment, but since less than one percent of my readers leave comments, I suppose that's not that surprising.
I write for an audience. That's why this journal is public. Regardless of what you may say, you're writing for an audience when you write, too. If you didn't want people to read your blog or journal, you wouldn't put it on the internet, and you wouldn't post links or write emails announcing your blog. Opening a word document and writing costs the same amount of money as writing a blog post, and takes less time setting up.
Not every post, but I have posts that are more than a few pages long (see here and here for examples). I spend time writing these posts, and I don't even write them everyday. There are people on the sidebar who spend more time on their posts than I do, and that's not including pictures, formatting, drawing networking, coding, photoshopping, audioposting, or whatever it is your favorite bloggers do other than blog. It's nice to give credit to people who really care about their blogs, who try to entertain and enlight the best they can.
I easily spend an hour a day reading blogs. Probably more, but it's kind of sad to think about it. I keep track of everyone on the sidebar, and everyone I've been meaning to add to the sidebar, too. Even if you spend ten minutes a day, that's still fifty hours a year that you spend reading blogs. Taking five minutes to nominate your three or four favorite blogs for an award isn't going to be the end of the world.
I hate it when people troll for compliments, hits and awards. You're no longer in 7th grade, and you shouldn't have to worry about having the cool kids invite you over to have lunch at their table. I'd just like to point out that I am, in no way, implying that you should nominate me. Hell, I didn't even nominate myself. In fact, don't nominate me. I doubt I'm the best blogger you read. Nominate those who are important to you.
You don't have to do anything hokey like write a sappy post like this, but try and do something nice for the bloggers you read. Even just being short-listed for an award would probably make someone's day. You have until Monday at five to nominate people. Try to make a blogger's day. I'm going to try.
