What's My Motivation Again?

OK, I've now proven to myself that I can write (at least) 500 words about any topic that I haven't sufficiently planned for.  In fact, if I really think hard about it, I can write 32K and counting words on a topic that I haven't sufficiently planned for.  If I squint my eyes and think even harder, most of what I've written over the course of my life has been poorly researched, so I guess an inchoate blog is right up my alley.

Ok, so why do it?  Well, it certainly helps that I like to write.  I'm not certain that too many people are ever going to read this or any of my other posts, but it's not likely to stop me from writing - at least in fits and starts - here.  In fact, there are times where I don't necessarily want people to read what's here.  I want the therapy that comes along with jotting your thoughts down, and I don't necessarily want to do deal with all the scary people lurking on the internet.

But, if I can turn a "hobby" into something that can make me money, I guess it's worth it to go toe-to-toe with the comrade bots from time to time.  I'd also like to see if I can produce content that entertains, informs, or provokes people into thought.  I put "hobby" in quotes as I don't see writing as a fun past time that I may walk away from at some point.  I see it as a necessity.  I also do a fair amount of writing at work, so I'm not worried about the old adage of spoiling a hobby by turning it into a business, because it's already a part of my typical tedium.

Besides, the concept of "writing" (I'm big on quotes today) is such a varied concept that it's hard to say what part of it would be considered a hobby.  It's like saying "you'll hate speaking in English that much more once you have to do it for a living."  If I have to spend 1-2 hours a day writing 1000 - 2000 words and that becomes the principal activity in a new job, I should be able to cope.  If I can't, then I'm going to have a hard time with anything, because most careers require more than a couple hour commitment per day (except for millionaire trust fund baby).

Now, this, again, is assuming I don't have to research any pieces, but even that doesn't bother me.  Again, as an arbitrary guess, if I'm putting in 3 hours of research for every 1 hour of writing, that's still not a shabby proposition.  I don't intend to try my hand at journalism, where the time chasing down leads, double-checking them, and making sure you've satisfied at least one editor can be highly variable (and all while still on deadline - no wonder journalism has a higher level of sociopathy than most professions).  And, at this moment in our Summer of Corona, I'm lucky enough to have the luxury to experiment and see how things work out.

And, experimentation, even in the worst of times, is cheap.  As long as I have the internet and a laptop, content creation is a snap.  Now, I didn't say that good content creation is a snap, but again, we refrain to - I'm probably going to create content for myself whether or not I'm simply throwing it into the electronic void.  

If I'm lucky enough to be able to increase my reading base significantly and host my own site then according to this post (oh look, I did actually do some research - unverified, but research nevertheless.  I'm building some good habits early-on during this pleasant Saturday eve) the magic number is somewhere around 100,000 page views.  Per month.

In the realm of the tech world, that's an easy target to scale up to.  A fairly successful mid-size e-commerce company could see that kind of traffic in under 10 minutes.  In addition, they typically have more dynamic content, whereas my blog posts - if I'm really prolific - will change twice a day.  

Why is this important?  Well, it's not to you, but it is to me, because it means, should I become wildly successful, I won't have to spend an arm and a leg on infrastructure.  Hosting static content (that of the 2 updates at most per day variety) is pretty straightforward.

So, to round out this Medium-averse length blog post, here's why blogging makes sense, even if I'm never going to see my dream of owning a gold plated house come to fruition as a result of my authoring capabilities:

• I like to write.
• Writing for me is cathartic.
• Because writing is ingrained in what I do now, it's not likely to burn me out if this becomes a part-time business or a full-time business.
• Blogging is a low barrier to entry business.  Usually, this is bad, but because writers are uniquely stylized in their offerings, I'm not "competing" on price or feature set, I'm "competing" on content (again with the quotes).  I say "competing" because, while you only have a limited amount of time in your life (as do I).  However, if you read another blog (or novel or billboard ad), it doesn't mean that you, therefore can't read my blog.  The number of competitors I'm facing is highly fluid and extremely heterogenous, so blogging - as it stands today until TikTok and Insta kill the written word - isn't a zero-sum game.
• Even if I'm wildly successful, the cost to maintain a blogging business is extremely low (as opposed to maintaining an airplane manufacturer).

So, I don't really have much to lose by attempting to monetize my blog and pretty much everything to gain, even if it's not monetary gain.