It seems I lost one of my American subscribers today. I have been accused of being overly critical and negative in my recent blogs thus making them a bad start to the day. Despite the natural panic at the loss of what probably represents 10% of my readers, I do appreciate the "door slammed in the face" departure rather than "the slinking away discreetly" approach. I cannot fault my ex-reader's reasons as it is true that my recent blogs have been both critical and possibly humourless. In my defence I would like to highlight three mitigating circumstances:
- I'm on holiday (You might argue that would give me more time to polish my posts but in fact I find it harder to find the time and the inspiration when my days are filled with family events, swimming in the ocean and early morning tennis).
- Criticism is the easy option when you don't have inspiration there is always something annoying that you can blow out of proportion. It's human. Look at Adam he was in paradise and he still wasn't satisfied.
- Finally I think there are blog cycles. A variety of factors (moon phases, last meal, star positions, tidal height, weather patterns, result of the morning tennis score and temperature of the cold shower) will impact the tone of my posts.
This does pose the interesting question of how much should I pander to my readers in the hope of retaining them rather than sticking to my line even if I end up preaching in a desert. I'm too stubborn to tone down or amend my positions, so I'll just have to hope enough of my readers will bear with me until the next cycle.
Be that as it may, I am still grateful to my ex-reader for having held out for so long and for her feedback. Positive or negative, engagement is always better than aloofness.
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