Here’s a great wiki post on How to Dissuade Yourself from becoming a Blogger.

If you have come to this blog without coercion, and especially if you are considering blogging, this information is vital. And it’s absolutely true.

Write on a regular basis in a text editor instead. If that doesn’t satisfy your urge, and you feel that you must post your blog online, then you might just be craving attention and validation–which you’ll never truly find in a blog. If you give up on your Wordpad journal after about three days, you’ll do the same with a blog that just takes up server space.

Of course there are two sides to every apple, mon frere. It’s true that blogging comes to spare pickins in terms of external validation, and that’s it generally amounts to honking your horn while passing through a tunnel. And it’s an excellent way of sowing the seeds of future embarrassment.

Perhaps the worst thing about blogging is the process. Write, then publish. That’s not the way quality is produced. The better process is: ideate, research, ponder, take a walk, make notes, pet the dog, start a draft, eat lunch, start over, write several more drafts, give up with something that looks mostly finished, think about shaving, share it with people, re-write it, and stare at it while thinking about publication.

On the other hand, it’s like what Douglas Adams said about Earth in Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy: “Mostly Harmless.” It’s a hobby. Flying in airplanes started out as a hobby of – inter alia – two bicycle-repairing brothers. And I think online publishing, once past this awkward adolescence, will grow into something valid. After all, the evening news and the daily paper are cranky, arthritic old men now. Something’s coming along to replace them; and it too is on its way to memory.