The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Everybody Keeps Getting a Busy Signal at the Blogger Burnout Hotline Nowadays

Posted on | April 29, 2012 | 31 Comments

Professor William Jacobson laments Don Surber’s recent decision to quit blogging. It is probably just a coincidence that Don, one of the most valuable members of the conservative blogosphere since 2005, was never invited to speak at BlogCon. Instapundit grimly holds on.

UPDATE: Pat Austin is also grimly hanging on in Shreveport. She offers to chat over beer, and I’d love to take her up on the offer, as long as I don’t have to drive through Livonia.

UPDATE II (Smitty): Welcome, Instapundit readers! Let us link each other, to beat back burnout banshee!

Category: Don Surber, Instapundit, Legal Insurrection

Comments

31 Responses to “Everybody Keeps Getting a Busy Signal at the Blogger Burnout Hotline Nowadays”

  1. Adobe_Walls
    April 29th, 2012 @ 6:19 pm

    Lot of that grimly hanging on going around.

  2. Ford Prefect
    April 29th, 2012 @ 7:31 pm

    RSM, why don’t you get with the other cool conservative bloggers and start your own blogcon?

  3. Pat Austin
    April 29th, 2012 @ 7:49 pm

    You’re safe; Livonia is way south of me.

  4. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    April 29th, 2012 @ 8:04 pm

    Stacy, you can not be victimized by Tabitha Hale’s neglect.  Start your own blog con.  Say in New Orleans.  It would be popular.   

    And thanks to Don for seven years.  Let’s call this a sabbatical and not a retirement.

    Oh BTW, I linked you and Wombat’s earlier post on this subject.  

  5. Instapundit » Blog Archive » PROF. JACOBSON ON THE DANGERS OF “BLOGGER BURNOUT.” I’m still around. But I suppose it’ll get me t…
    April 29th, 2012 @ 8:30 pm

    […] No, that doesn’t mean that I’m “grimly hanging on.” Quite the contrary at this […]

  6. teapartydoc
    April 29th, 2012 @ 9:19 pm

    Just hang on through November.  Then you can go out to pasture if you like.

  7. Blogger Burnout Got to Don Surber | The Lonely Conservative
    April 29th, 2012 @ 9:29 pm

    […] I had a lot of running around to do, so I didn’t realize he had quit until I saw the news at The Other McCain. Apparently, blogger burnout is going around. Pat Austen noted some other conservative bloggers who […]

  8. PoliticalClownParade
    April 29th, 2012 @ 9:55 pm

    I’d like to thank Smitty for his constant support of my site.  He champions my work often.  No better blogger friend exists on the intertoobs.

    He is a gentleman and a scholar.

    And I’d like to thank all of the readers from TOM who have followed links to my site.

    Let us all stand guard over liberty together.

  9. Zilla of the Resistance
    April 29th, 2012 @ 10:08 pm

     And thank you for sharing your immense creative gifts with the rest of us, you are a treasure beyond measure!

  10. Wendy/Salacious Sully
    April 29th, 2012 @ 10:09 pm

    I sold Girl on the Right back in February, after 8 years. Enough was enough. How many more times could I say “Muslims want us dead, free healthcare does too!”? 

    Wendy

  11. Zilla of the Resistance
    April 29th, 2012 @ 10:10 pm

    Hanging by a frayed thread here in the swamplands of New York State,  but still hanging on as best as I can, even if nobody cares.

  12. Dudge OH
    April 29th, 2012 @ 11:12 pm

    Like Zilla, I too hang on by a frayed thread. Back in my more active days, my blogs were mainly a constant stream of life reflections, (i.e. whining about my kids and work). Just as my focus started to move from the inane (life) to the insane (politics), my output plummeted, (not that it had far to fall).

    I feel like I have one giant, rallying call to action blog hanging around in my brain, but its like that good dream that you only remember bits of, when you wake up.

    Also, as Wendy/Salacious Sully points out, we can only bang on about the same few, if important, topics before we get bored. Especially when we’re preaching to the choir, so to speak.

    Also, the good weather is (supposedly!) upon us, so trips to the park to keep the kids quiet, yard work and other duties and/or outdoorsiness tend have people leaving the confines of their keyboard.

  13. Michael Swartz
    April 30th, 2012 @ 12:16 am

    A couple observations…

    I have been doing a website since 2005. But early on I figured out that I can’t just do one subject without burning out, so I don’t just blog on the political but also local sports and music. It keeps things fresh for me.

    It’s understandable that people also have to do other things in order to make money. For most of the time period I’ve been running my website I had an outside job, although it’s gone from a full-time gig to nothing to part-time over the years. As long as the rent can be paid, that’s just fine (although a tip jar rattle now and then is nice too.)

    As I’ve been doing this for over seven years, I have seen countless sites come and go just in my locality. Now multiply that by thousands of specks on the map and it’s clear that blogging isn’t for everyone.

    And yes, I am one of those independent conservative bloggers which is apparently a dying breed. I have never had co-contributors and don’t plan to start – with a site name like monoblogue it would make no sense to go stereo.

    Yes, I have days I have no desire to sit at the keyboard but I also post on a schedule which suits my needs and I’m not afraid to pre-write items I know I can get away with. Those mostly fall in the local music and sports categories.

    It’s my story and I’m sticking to it. As long as I find value in doing this I will keep on doing so. I call it my retirement.

  14. M. Thompson
    April 30th, 2012 @ 12:31 am

    Keep Buggering On, to quote Sir Winston.

    Eventually, the truth will set you free, Mr. McCain.

  15. Bob Belvedere
    April 30th, 2012 @ 8:07 am

    Damn right she is.

  16. Bob Belvedere
    April 30th, 2012 @ 8:09 am

    We have to be prepared to stay in this thing for the long haul.  It’s our duty to those who will come after us.  I have no children, but I do it for all of those yet unborn who stand a good change of being born into a nightmare world and will rightly curse us if we don’t try.

  17. Bob Belvedere
    April 30th, 2012 @ 8:09 am

    Many of us do Zilla.

    NO COMPROMISE
    NO QUARTER
    NO RETREAT
    NO SURRENDER
    WOLVERINES!

  18. Bob Belvedere
    April 30th, 2012 @ 8:12 am

    burnout banshee!!!

    Why do you hate women, Smitty?!?

  19. Open Call to Conservative Bloggers | Copious Gasser
    April 30th, 2012 @ 8:15 am

    […] was over at The Other McCain this morning and saw this post lamenting blogger burnout. What was most interesting and caught my eye was some of the comments to the post. Wendy/Salacious […]

  20. Don Surber
    April 30th, 2012 @ 9:39 am

    Thanks, Stacy. You know the feeling is mutual. I just could not handle fulltime editorial writing and blogger, something you are familiar with.

    Anyone need a blogger coach?

  21. ThePaganTemple
    April 30th, 2012 @ 11:39 am

     Well, I really feel like a dumbass, I just subscribed to your Facebook page, and you’re probably not going to be posting anything there either now.

  22. rbeccah
    April 30th, 2012 @ 11:58 am

    I depend on these blogs, both for information I can’t get elsewhere, and because they continue to reassure me that the good fight is still being fought.  And so many good things have happened because bloggers like you wouldn’t give up.

  23. Don Surber
    April 30th, 2012 @ 12:02 pm

    LOL   If anything, I am overposting.

  24. ThePaganTemple
    April 30th, 2012 @ 12:58 pm

     Good, I’ll probably be sharing some of your posts.

  25. Laurence Sheldon
    April 30th, 2012 @ 3:46 pm

    Beginning to look like Valley Forge!

    We have got to find a way to replenish the troops!

    Right NOW!

  26. .ee
    April 30th, 2012 @ 7:09 pm

    I was extremely sad to read that Mr. Surbef was quitting blogging. I love his blog! I just gotta get used to reading his editorials. (Which I did read.) Maybe you could come back, Mr. Surber, with lower output? More about the top down days? Just the Daily Scoreboard?

    I was initially afraid that something was wrong–the left had hacked my favorite bloggers. (Don Surber disappeared for a bit, and Bookworm Room was not writing or having RSS issues, and someone else also took a few day hiatus…)

    I’m selfish–Don Surber’s b.of was a big part of my day. I will miss him!!!!

  27. I thought I was suffering from blogger burnout once. Turned out I was just hungry. « The TrogloPundit
    April 30th, 2012 @ 7:55 pm

    […] RSM is mining the subject for links; […]

  28. Blogger Burnout? « The Rhetorican
    April 30th, 2012 @ 9:26 pm

    […] Blogger Burnout?Blogger Burnout?  That seemed to be the weekend’s catchphrase around the Dextrosphere upon the news that the excellent Don Surber was retiring from blogging. […]

  29. Erick Brockway
    May 1st, 2012 @ 9:15 am

    Everyone burns out after a while, there’s nothing wrong with taking a break now and then. Guest bloggers seem to take the strain off for some like Patterico.

    Helps if it’s not your primary or only source of income, though.

  30. Erick Brockway
    May 1st, 2012 @ 9:23 am

    Exactly, your blog should be a reflection of YOUR interests, not the topic of the day or trying to guess will be the next Big Thing all the time.

    Mine is a little blog that I use to mainly store things that I think are cool or interesting, and someday my kids may tune in after I’m gone to see what ol’ dad was always going on about. Breadcrumbs that lead them to me and who I was. If others read it, cool! I put it out there on Twitter.

    I don’t feel I HAVE to do it, though, so a break now and then is no biggie.

    Oh! And if I can piss the left off with a post, that’s a bonus!

  31. Wendy Sullivan is a liar.
    May 2nd, 2012 @ 12:48 pm

    Liar. You’re hiding out to avoid being sued.