And now for the next iteration

This is probably my fourth (fifth? sixth?) attempt at starting a blog, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it actually turns out to be successful. And by "successful" I don't mean "people reading it," but rather I mean that 1) it doesn't devolve into crap that I ultimately find embarrassing and want to delete, and 2) it doesn't get to be such a chore that I just stop writing. A fair number of people I know have been bugging me to start a blog. Apparently it's a bit of a prerequisite these days.

But here's my dilemma. I'm a new-media journalist. That means two things. One, despite the fact that I'm pretty much nothing special, my entire work takes place on and over the Internet, and consequently I feel as though anything I do on the Internet is intimately tied to my work. As a result, I'm very conscious of not wanting to say anything that will inadvertently have negative consequences for myself or my job -- I'm not talking self-censorship here, I'm talking "let's not be stupid." I have a deep respect for my profession as well as the company that employs me, and for that reason I think it's necessary for me to keep those interests in mind when I write anything.

The second reason I have for not starting a blog is the fact that I write all day. I love it. I really do. But when I get home, I'd rather read a book, watch a movie, or go to a concert than get back to my keyboard and bang something out. This means that if I'm going to write a blog on my own time, I don't want to feel like it has to be either regular or good. But if I don't post regularly, I look like a slacker, and if I write crappy posts, I look...lame.

See why I vacillate over this so much?

But anyway, here I am. I'm not going to try to keep this identity separate from my work identity (always a fine line to tread) but at the same time, don't expect any juicy office gossip or insider dirt. Trust me, I'm really not that interesting.