Not Like Before

I refuse to blog like before.

Folks called me the rock’n'rollnigga, at my own urging, when last I kept a blog. I was fine with that. Hell, my girlfriend (back before she was my girlfriend) tracked my digital posts to my email address. Keeping up with other bloggers was the norm back then. Increasing page counts was the aim and to do so one resigned oneself to the pettiness of popularity games now normalized by Facebook and MySpace.

Employment wasn’t so much a concern back then; I was in college. Employers also hadn’t quite realized that their employees (present, future or soon-to-be fired) were detailing their lives for all to see.

So one networked, visiting the “cool/popular” blogs and hoping that their popularity would prop up your Internet existence. You left comments and linked to each other sites. All of this was fine and well until it (and other things, no doubt) began to choke my desire to blog.

Grooming myself (stylistically) to appeal to the bloggers whose readership I lusted after soon struck me as ridiculous. To compete meant stripping naked, figuratively more than literally. Add to that an overwhelming distaste for much of what my friends fellow bloggers were writing.

Rocknrollnigga.blogspot met its end soon after (though it amuses me to see that it had been resurrected as some sort of porno-spam dumping ground).

I’m not trying to compete with this blog. That time may indeed come, just not right now and not here. I want to lay some ground rules, for myself and the few people who may stumble across this site.

1. I will not make permanent links to any other blog here.
2. I will write what’s on my mind to further my skills.
3. This is not my diary journal.
4. I will keep most posts under 300 words.