Superhuman Blogging!

Okay, here's a follow-up to last night's post, "One Million Hits at American Power."

I should respond to the comment from my good friend Wordsmith, who wondered, "I seriously do not know how you blog so prolifically, with such quality, and still have a professorial job and family life." Well, I'll tell ya, I couldn't do it without a little help from my friends:

Not pictured is my super-duper best friend, American Power progeny #2. I don't generally post pictures of him, although you can find him third image down at my photo-essay from Halloween (he's wearing his Marvel shirt there, so you can tell he's an expert in these matters).

So, the first rule of superhuman blogging: Keep your friends close (and in my case that means family, since my kids and my wife are my best buddies). You see, I don't like doing anything without 'em. Oh, sure I go out to movies by myself, or to Barnes and Noble, or shopping. But I don't like going out of town without my family. They're always with me, even when I'm blogging, like right now. My kid helped assemble the superhero team of the Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, and Wolverine. I couldn't perform such miraculous feats of investigative blogging without these guys!

Other than that, I'm a professor, so it's totally cool to blog at work. Most folks I imagine don't have that luxury. But I'm on the computer all the time, reading the news and thinking about the hot issues of the day. So, it's a pretty seamless transition between work and home. Honestly, at home, since my kids are still small, I'm more in the Daddy Daycare mode. My wife's a full-time career woman, and since she's in retail she's especially busy around the holidays, like right now. So, it's mostly hangin' out, unless I'm running the kids to birthday parties or school events.

But as I noted at "One Million Hits," I've got some changes planned for the blog in 2010. I hope to do even more original reporting, but other than that I need to write less and get out on my own more often -- especially for exercising. I'm overweight by about 25 pounds. I need to pick up hiking again, and while I don't make New Year's resolutions, if I had one that'd be it. Actually, I can blog my hikes, so that'll be fun.

Anyway, I'll close with my previous comments on "loving what you do," which I published earlier at "How to Become a Successful Conservative Blogger":

For me, I'm simply combining my career as a professor of political science, and my love of politics, with blogging. Blogging has become a part of what I do. Frankly, I'm not so much interested in scholarly publishing, although because I maintain professional currency with the literature, I can blog on anything from the most sophisticated academic studies in international relations to the most ordinary stories in the news and popular culture. My enthusiasm comes and goes. Sometimes blogging's an addiction, but sometimes it feels like a chore. That's going to happen, so balancing the online life with all the other responsibilities is challenging. But you can't be successful unless you're willing to elevate the blog to a central place in your personality and being. It's back to my "Rule 1" above. Have commitment, and make it fun and personal. But also have a healthy understanding of the consequences of your work.

I guess that's the second rule of superhuman blogging: love it or leave it!