Compartmentalisation and Fresh Air

As I started to think about how these questions referred back to what I was doing it with Reading List it started to become apparent to me that lumping all the different types of postings I wanted to write onto one single blog was not the way to go.

With the way my RSS feed was starting to be picked up and syndicated by various other blogs, the result was that I was beginning to recieve criticism from a variety of different angles.

Firstly I recieved some feedback from a regular visitor that announcements of what was on my mind was interrupting the flow of news and general interest stories; secondly this was forcing me to maintain a high-wire act, balancing between objectivity and subjectivity, which was increasingly unsustainable as readers began trying to identify a political bias in my writing in an attempt to discredit my efforts. And then there were those readers who were noticably put off by my unhealthily inconsistent aggressive-defensive stance.

It is certainly an enlightening experience to enter a competitive realm and discover how new entrants are viewed with suspicion by those in dominant market positions - and it made me quickly wake up to the need to address the weaknesses in my approach.

In both the local media and political marketplaces I soon became treated like an uninvited guest who arrives late to spoil the established cosy party by stealing a slice of the cake. Some unlikely alliances were forged in an attempt to squeeze me out, but I've been reassured by the loyalty of those friends I've made online that I can take my place at the table - even though it requires me to sharpen my mind and my elbows to carve out my niche.

So this blog page is part of my response. Hopefully it will enable me to 'secularise' my identity from my blogging, prevent me from doing too many things at once and thereby help me improve the quality of my writing.

There's an image which keeps coming to the front of my mind about an old-fashioned compartment in a train - the kind you can see in black-and-white films when smoking was still permitted - all claustrophobic with stale air and no space to move or breathe freely.

It feels like I've just opened the window and let some fresh air in!