Loosing Your Voice

In response to below, I wonder if bloggers do run into the trouble of losing their voice and selling out after a certain point. I'm sure this is more probable with head bloggers. But I wonder about the tail bloggers, the average blogger like me. It seems that if there is no reason to catch mass attention, there would be no need for me to change my voice. It seems there is a certain tone that bloggers might take to get attention. In an interview with Aylet Waldman, a novelist, she said, "There is a tone that you have to adopt in order to make your voice heard amidst the general cacophony. You have to make it pop. And an easy way to make it pop is for it to be snarky." But what if some readers don't like to read an always-irritable voice? In other cases, some might change their subject matter or the look of their blog.

But I would especially not have to worry about changing my voice if I'm an unknown. I know that, along with myself, very few (if any) people will read this. Even if I became known, wouldn't I keep the voice I've been writing in if that's what's been attracting readers? I would think so.

But what if I wanted attention to my blog to get acknowledgment that what I have to say matters to somebody? In that case, trying to get that attention may be a losing battle. Firstly, because I have no idea how to get mass attention. Secondly, because I don't think what I have to say is groundbreaking or of interest to very many people.

In all honesty, however, I do want someone to read and respond to my blog. If I'm going to have it all out in the open, I obviously want some attention. If I kept this in my own personal journal, not expecting or wanting anyone else to read it, I would have no other audience in mind but future self, who would go back and read my past to see how far I've come and how much I've learned. But having a public blog changes things. Now, I have a public audience and I want them to see and learn what I've written about. If I did want to get their attention and thought that changing my voice is the way to do that, how do I know how to change? What if I don't think snarky will work?