Blogging: the ecstasy of the agony

A couple of years ago I stumbled upon and began voraciously (and anonymously) reading the blog of an ex co-worker who had left to be a stay-at-home mom. I loved her blog! Her kid was preternaturally cute, the trials of parenting she described seemed heroic and rewarding, and I loved hearing her angst about loving/hating being married with a kid and all her post-baby (as well as pre-baby) body issues. Her life seemed really interesting and fabulous, and I couldn't wait for updates.

And then she had another kid, only this time around she seems to have settled in to motherhood and family life. She seems content and mature. Gone is the angsting about dress sizes, fashion posts or any of that girly stuff (I loved her style and think she's gorgeous!). Also missing are the doubt-filled, introspective posts around being a mother and a wife. She just seems a lot happier, in life and with herself. And that's great, right?

Well, yes. But... it's a lot less interesting reading. Does admitting that make me a bad person? Hardly, at least I don't think so. But it brings up the question of what makes a good blog, and whether the stories of our lives, with their ebb and flow of calm as well as storm, actually make good reading. When reading a novel, do you find yourself skimming over the parts where things are too good? Where the characters are too happy, and life just hums along for them? I can't say that I necessarily skim them, but when they drag on for too long, it's boring. I get bored. Just as I have gotten a little bored with this woman's blog.

I still read her, and probably will for the foreseeable future. She's a good writer, and I think she's an interesting person. And granted, she's probably a lot busier now that she's wrangling two little kids. But I don't get impatient for updates like I used to. Same with another woman who has "depersonalized" her blog over time; now it's about more general goings-on and giveaways rather than the struggles and triumphs of her life. But, those are what attracted me to her blog in the first place! So, again, I'm not the avid reader I used to be.

So, what do we do with the calm periods? How do we write about those so that they encourage readership and discussion? Or, is blogging ultimately about something besides metrics and/or a popularity contest? The fact that blogs are public means that most of us will approach them differently than a written journal. Should we approach our blogs as novelists rather than diarists? Is there even an appreciable difference? How much can we tweak our stories before they become fictionalized? Or, is that the point?