Late last night I finished work on a tough project for a new client that was giving me the yips. It’s not fashionable to admit I struggled with a simple Web site project, but I’d write it, look at it, and decide I’d typed a lot of garbage.

This morning I got up early, gave it a once-over, and shipped it. Then, feeling tired and beat up, I read my e-mail, where I found the following note from Carson Brackney (formerly) of Content Done Better.

Suddenly, I didn’t feel so bad. You see, Carson Killed his Blog.

I’m tempted to snicker, but I know how much effort’s gone into Content Done Better. I’d cry me a river if I accidentally killed any of my WordPress blogs.

I’ve published his angst-ridden note below. It’s either a cry for help, a cautionary tale, or an illustration of how ephemeral “word life” is on the blogosphere.

I told him yesterday he “owed” me a post after I built a post around one of his posts, which he pulled down minutes after I put mine up. I didn’t think he’d go to this extreme to provide it.

Carson’s Big Adventure:

-1A Cautionary Tale…The evils of procrastination…A helpful reminder…

If you’re reading this, your probably seeing it at someone else’s blog. I sent this to a few bloggers in hopes that they might spread the word for me. This is what it’s like to be a homeless blogger.

That’s not the way I wanted it to happen. In fact, I didn’t want anyone to read this. I didn’t want to write this. After tonight, I felt obligated to do it, though. I think part of me was hoping to find some catharsis in the process, too.

I have (or should I say “had”) a blog hosted at Blogger.com.

It wasn’t necessarily the world’s best blog, but it was a labor of love. I’d been running it for about fourteen months and it had nearly 350 posts. They weren’t usually short posts, either. I have a tendency to run longer than most bloggers.

This blog was a marketing tool for my freelance copywriting and content production business, Content Done Better. It was a branding device, a chance to reach out to potential customers, a way to engage in dialogs about the content business with people from a variety of perspectives, and more.

Over time I also tried to make it my contribution to the writing community’s ongoing discussion, too. It’s where I announced plans, tracked my goals, griped about things I didn’t like, reported on things I loved, promoted my newsletter and did just about everything else.

When I started the Content Done Better Blog, it was just a little side thing. I wasn’t sure how it would work out for me or if it was really necessary. So, I didn’t bother putting it under my own roof. I just let the good people from Blogger take care of everything for me.

They did a damn good job, too. Sure, there were occasional service interruptions and headaches, but for a free service, it was great.

They probably did things too well. You see, as the blog grew in size, readership and personal significance, I kept telling myself I should move it to a sub domain of www.contentdonebetter.com or give it a home of its own. I knew that was a good idea, but I just didn’t bother. I was a little too busy or too disinterested every time the thought crossed my mind. After all, Blogger was doing a fine job and there was no way they were going to pull the plug on all of those blogspot blogs!

Before I knew it, the idea of relocation seemed impractical. Things were going too well at Blogger. The traffic numbers were piling up. The blog was receiving notice from other writers (most of it kind), clients were finding me via the blog, Google loved it, the RSS subscriber lists were growing. I didn’t want to mess with a good thing.

Tonight (actually last night), I was working on a project that involved providing some basic instructions on setting up a Blogger.com blog. In order to make sure I had everything just right, I created a dummy blog and marched through the process along with the imagined readers. When I was done, I decided to delete the silly little thing.

So, I deleted it.

Not really. It was late and I was tired (the adrenaline hadn’t yet made its way through my body). I just wasn’t paying attention. I clicked here, I clicked there. I said “yes” when asked if I was sure I wanted to send that crummy little mock-up to the trash forever.

It took a few minutes before I realized that I didn’t delete the project blog. I killed the Content Done Better Blog.

That was about four hours ago. Since then, I’ve been scrambling. I sent the requisite email to the Blogger.com support people. Maybe that will work. I tried to find out if my self-inflicted wound was necessarily fatal. The jury is still out on all of that. I do have an outside chance at full restoration, apparently. Of course, that little glimmer of hope is based on two message board comments about deleted blogs from well before the transition to the new Blogger system. I’m not hopeful.

After that, I started scouring Google for the cached copy of every post. I think I probably recovered well over 300 of them. That’s nice, but it isn’t a real solution.

I’d have to republish them all in order. All of the graphics are long gone. Meanwhile, all of those great search engine results now lead to a 404 error page. How am I going to reach out and find everyone who reads the feed or has the site bookmarked that I committed aggravated blogslaughter? I can’t send out a handy change of address card to people I don’t know.

All of that great Technorati traffic. Poof! My growing network of MyBlogLog contacts? I’ll have to spend hours notifying them and hoping its worth their effort to note the change. Prospective clients I haven’t even met yet might decide to take one more look at my blog before making their decision. I won’t be there.

You get the idea. It’s an unmitigated disaster. It’s eerie, too. I can’t log into the blog, but parts of it remain online. Every time I check, though, less of it seems to be there. It’s rotting away.

Before you start polishing silver linings to stick under my nose, I do realize that it isn’t like I had a stroke or had a massive car accident. It isn’t the end of the world and with hours and hours of hard (but unnecessary) work, I will rebuild. I do have a sense of perspective.

I also have a sense of responsibility to tell you all something…

If you are using a free blogging rig like Blogger.com, move your fucking blogs to your own domain. Shell out a few measly bucks for hosting. Back up every damn thing you do. Start today. Better yet, start now.

Yeah, I know. You’re busy. You aren’t dumb enough to accidentally delete your blog. Well, I was too busy and the thought that I might zap 350 posts into vapor would’ve seemed ridiculous to me four horus ago.

So, I will say it again. Move them now. Back them up.

If you aren’t going to do that, at least make sure you never, ever, ever delete your blog late at night. Be careful when deleting is involved and never leave yourself scrambling for cached copies of old posts at two in the morning, okay?

And, if you could, keep your fingers crossed that some genius at Blogger.com is going to read my support emails before it’s too late and will be able to flip the magic “back to normal” switch for me. Then, I can start a smart migration to a new home.

I’d say that I’ll be keeping you updated, but I don’t have a blog at the moment.

Carson Brackney

Content Done Better

http://www.contentdonebetter.com

http://content-writer.blogspot.com (maybe, but probably not)

[tags]content done better, carson, carson brackney, blog, blogs, blogger, [/tags]

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