Interview

One year after the first famous Interview, Haldur Gislufsson (left), who has just returned from his holiday in Crete, is once again interviewing Yours Truly (right) about blogging, life, the universe, and everything.

Haldur: Ah, you know, it's good to be back.
Horst: It's good to have you back. And you got quite a tan! You look great!

Haldur: Yes, Crete was lovely. And I hear we have one winner in our quiz...
Horst: Yes, only one, I'm afraid. The others probably didn't have the time to do the necessary research. Our winner is Nora, who is also one of our winners in the man-with-the-beard quiz. Congratulations!

Haldur: Congratulations, Nora!
Horst: Your autographed Haldur fan postcard will be in the mail soon!

Haldur: But now on to more serious matters...
Horst: Ah yes. Blogging.

Haldur: When we were talking last year, you had just entered the Top 100 Radio weblogs. These days you're not just in the Top 30 every day, you're also currently number 62 in the all-time Top 100. How does that feel?
Horst: Well, it sure boosts my ego. I'll have to drink much less of this stuff in the future...

Haldur: No, seriously...
Horst: It's a good thing and a bad thing. It feels good to have so many people — 500 and more — visiting my weblog every day. But that's also quite stressful. I feel like I'm more and more obliged to write clever stuff, and I just can't do that on a daily basis. And while I want to give a truthful, personal view of things, I don't really want to become, you know, public.

Haldur: You feel you're becoming public?
Horst: In my referrer logs, I see that there's a number of people who come to my site after searching for my name in Google. I find that disquieting. While I don't care what people who don't know me think about me, I do care what people who might meet me think about me. And I certainly feel these people should not read my weblog.

Haldur: Now why is that?
Horst: Because when it comes to professional things, like my teaching or other occasional jobs that I do, I want to keep at a professional distance from my students or my customers. And I don't want them to have preconceptions. I guess I didn't think about that when I started to blog. Now I'm not just thinking about it, I'm beginning to worry about it.

Haldur: You did a relaunch of sorts in August. Did that have something to do with it?
Horst: Partly. Mostly, I was getting sick of all the stuff I was writing about. I wanted to publish more fictional stuff, more original stuff. I didn't want to be the umpteenth person to hand on yet another meme. And I was really getting fed up with writing about American politics, much as I felt it was necessary. I actually considered deleting the old archive, perhaps not even archive the new stuff. But I didn't do that.

Haldur: Why?
Horst: This is actually pretty embarrassing. Most of my hits are via Google search results to my archive. No more archive, no more hits. I'm a sucker for hits, apparently. I'm pretty ashamed of it.

Haldur: Well, I suppose it's hard to let go of 500 daily hits once you've got them.
Horst: It sure is.

Haldur: So did the relaunch work out as expected?
Horst: Well, sort of. I have certainly published more original stuff since then. But I didn't expect how exhausting that would be. You know, collecting ten links per day and commenting them, as I did before, takes up a lot of time, but not a lot of creative energy. Anybody with too much time on their hands can do it. But trying to write an original story day after day, that's an entirely different thing. It may take you only five minutes to write it, but you need to have an idea first. And ideas don't just appear like that, at least the good ones don't. Point is, I'm running out of ideas, either because I'm writing too often or because I have too much other work to do, so right now I'm at the point where I'm seriously considering either taking a lengthy break, or publishing much less frequently, or giving up the blog altogether.

Haldur: You want to stop blogging?
Horst: Yes. Very much so. At least temporarily. But it may turn out to be permanent.

Haldur: But... you can't do that!
Horst: Oh, I most certainly can. A huge number of blogs stopped during the past year. Remember Susannah Breslin? She was totally famous last year, I even cracked a joke about her not being a woman, and now she's disappeared without so much as a trace.

Haldur: But... you're not...
Horst: I'm losing interest. I'm reading fewer and fewer other weblogs, and I'm doing it less and less often. I feel that many other bloggers have very little to say, and, sadly, I noticed that so do I. Blog content is becoming more and more repetitive, as many people are only repeating what others are already saying. If I find WorldWideKlein's list of tragic computer deaths funny, does that mean I have to publish it on my blog, or isn't it sufficient if it's just on his site? Actually, I think the blogosphere is a more interesting place if it's just on his site and I write about other things.
The other thing is that I'm becoming more critical, and I'm getting the feeling that my weblog is beginning to suffer from the cat urine syndrome — it's becoming more banal. For example, I have this half-finished story about extra-hot ketchup, and I was almost going to publish it when I thought, "hey, wait a moment — who in their right minds would be seriously interested in a story about extra-hot ketchup?" This has been happening a lot lately. I want my writing to be interesting, and I doubt whether it can remain that way.

Haldur: And the reason for your doubts is...?
Horst: I said last year I would stop blogging "as soon as I feel I've run out of ideas or as soon as I feel obliged to do it rather than wanting to do it". Those were my words. And right now I'm running out of ideas, I'm publishing weak stuff because I feel obliged to publish something, and I'm losing interest in the whole concept.

Haldur: There are people, you know, who find your present stuff more interesting than what you wrote up until August.
Horst: Yes, I know. And that makes it even more difficult to continue. Because it's these people who expect (and deserve) quality, and I feel less and less able to deliver that quality.

Haldur: So... you're going to stop blogging now, just like that?
Horst: I don't know. Probably not. I have this problem letting go of things. I might blog on for a while, but I think I'll let go eventually... as it happens, there are a few other things in my life at the moment that I should probably just let go of. I'm spending a lot of time thinking about that sort of thing lately. In more than one way, I think it's time to move on.

Haldur: Um... you haven't talked about life, the universe and everything yet...
Horst: Oh, that's easy. Just step outside on a clear night with someone you love, and have a look at the stars together. If you are lucky, if there are at least 42 stars visible, and if you love each other, then you will realize what it's all about, and you'll be surprised by the simplicity of it.

Haldur: You know, this is actually a piece of old moose wisdom.
Horst: I'm not surprised. After all, you folks have been around much longer than us humans.

Haldur: Still, um, how do we continue blog-wise?
Horst: We'll see. I think we'll continue by stopping this interview and just see what will happen next.

Haldur: And if nothing happens?
Horst: I'm afraid that's the risk we'll have to take.