[kaashif]

> If I was forced to have an audience for ten years I’d just be saying crazy shit all the time.

There is an alternative. Just blog without an audience. Don't keep any web server logs (or don't look at them). Delete the analytics.

The fact that someone theoretically could be reading my blog is enough motivation to write something understandable (rather than just scrawling some gibberish in a notebook), but whether that audience actually exists or not doesn't matter to me.

There's no inherent need to write regularly if you feel you have nothing new to say, is there?

[paulpauper]

There is an alternative. Just blog without an audience. Don't keep any web server logs (or don't look at them). Delete the analytics.

That depends on your individual preferences I guess. I think having an audience is at least an indication that you're succeeding at it. Otherwise you have a diary, not a blog.

[kaashif]

> I think having an audience is at least an indication that you're succeeding at it.

If the goal is to get an audience, then having an audience is a success.

If the goal is primarily to crystallize your own understanding of things, write thoughts up in a coherent way, or something else which doesn't necessarily involve an audience, then you can have success without an audience.

> Otherwise you have a diary, not a blog.

If the blog is still there for people to see, it changes the kinds of things you write. I don't feel comfortable posting half-incomprehensible jumbled thoughts with partially worked examples, filled with mistakes on a blog, whereas I would feel comfortable writing that privately.

This does definitely depend on individual preferences and whether one can motivate themselves to write well without even the possibility of an audience. I can't.

[texaslonghorn5]

At least in my experience, writing is a great medium for creative expression. It's a relatively permanent medium to express the fleeting now. I can look back in many years and remember and reflect on what I did and thought.

As long as you're not dependent on having an audience as a form of income, I'd think the blog is intended for the writer first and foremost, and having a readership is secondary/optional.