Blogging Might Be Pointless
All creatives encounter a familiar difficulty: how to remain motivated about creation without an audience?
The answer is always the same. One must find the work intrinsically motivating. Write because you enjoy the process. Play music because you like how it sounds. Etc. Don't do it for the likes, the views, the feedback, do it because you like it for what it is.
It's not bad advice, but it's imperfect. I can play music for myself fairly easily. But blogging? The whole purpose of this type of work is to have an audience. Nonfiction writing, in general, is not about the process. It is a form of communication. Film reviews are meant for moviegoers. Baking recipes are meant for people whipping up something in the kitchen. A piece of in-depth journalism is intended to inform. These have limited entertainment value for their creators compared to more artistic endeavors.
Activities like blogging, streaming, and podcasting are fundamentally self centered. They say, “What I do has value and merits being shared with the world.” The extent to which that is true is then measured by the attention and engagement of readers, viewers, and listeners.
That's not to say the act of creating a piece of nonfiction can't be fun. Investigating some political intrigue can be thrilling. Experimenting in the kitchen and coming up with a new recipe is exciting. But once you step beyond the point of creation and into the realm of sharing that creation, it becomes something else. Experimenting in the kitchen is just cooking. Sharing those experiments on a blog is blogging. And even if you enjoy cooking, it can be hard to find the motivation to blog about it if nobody cares about your recipes.
If you can't garner an audience, you just have to be able to enjoy talking to yourself.