Blogging can be a frustrating experience. And I’m not just talking about the writing aspect which is a challenge in itself. I’m talking about the whole enchilada – the writing, the SEO, the managing of comments and particularly the perpetual feeding of the blog!

A blog is like a young bird in a nest with its mouth wide open waiting for its next feed. Somehow the bird is never satisfied because its mouth is always gaping. And when food doesn’t arrive on time the ungainly little fledgling sets up a commotion, screaming and flapping its naked wings!

I presume that this applies to many a blog out there – it certainly applies to mine. I have four of these demanding critters. Each one with a mind of its own and its own set of related issues.

But there are also times when they can make you laugh.

Take my blog, Graphology World for example. As you know, content is the heart of any blog. But while content is the heart, comments are the circulatory system. You cannot have one without the other.

Blog comments show you that the blog is active and alive.  They also give the blogger access to his or her readers.

Now I had been collecting comments for many years. To me they were like proverbial bees around the graphological honey pot.  You can’t have honey without bees!

Well one fine day, a hacker found his way into my blog and inundated it with thousands of spam comments. The company hosting the blog was furious. They couldn’t handle the influx and so they shut the blog down.

Eventually after much to-ing and fro-ing they re-instated it – but sadly without the comments. They had deleted every one. And no, they weren’t able to get them back for me. They were permanently gone. I just had to face it.

Now the thing about comments is that most people don’t like to be first to leave an opinion.  They are shy about putting themselves out there and they only leave comments when they see that the post already has several existing ones.

There was my blog in all it’s naked glory. Completely and utterly devoid of any comments and totally friendless.

So imagine my excitement a few weeks later when I received my first brave new comment!

Joy and delight!

That is until I read it.

And what a shocker it turned out to be. I turned all colours from pink to bright red.

My new comment was a furious and very blue observation about a certain blog post I had written and the language was unrepeatable.

After the initial shock, I burst out laughing. I had never heard or read such colourful language. Particularly in relation to something as innocuous as graphology. But there it was in all it’s passion and fury burning a hole in the page.

The post in question was a rather popular one about ugly handwriting and what it says about personality. In that particular post I had mentioned that ugly handwriting could (among other things) indicate bad temper.

Apparently this frustrated reader disagreed vociferously with verbal guns blazing – in capitals! He insisted that although his handwriting was ugly he was not an angry person.

My premise that ugly handwriting was sometimes connected to volatility or bad temper was hogwash (he was more explicit) and I in particular was a “S–tbird! I had never heard that term before but it was so deliciously expressive that I had to laugh.

I do wish that I could repeat the entire diatribe because it made me crack up with laughter! But trust me – it really is unprintable!

However, there in full evidence was justification for my claim that handwriting can reveal bad temper – and from his response real anger too. Of course, he had completely overlooked the good points I had mentioned.

How I wished that I could have seen his handwriting!

I haven’t deleted his little composition but I also can’t publish it. So I keep it there just to remind myself of that little aphorism – “if the shoe fits wear it.” Graphologically speaking of course!

So what did I learn? Quite a bit actually.

Among other things I learnt that criticism comes in many shapes and sizes and

• that if you accidentally press an emotional button you will get an emotional response.
• That blog posts can bring emotions to boiling point no matter how innocuous you think they are
• That blogs are living things because they tend to take on a life of their own
• and that blogging should never be entered into lightly because it can have the most unpredictable consequences!

Of course I didn’t reply. What would you have done?

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