What if...?

For us spanking enthusiasts, clearing browser history is just one of the many precautions we have to take if we are worried about people finding out what blogs and related sites we visit.

But what would happen if you suddenly became unable to continue your blogging activities, either temporarily or permanently? We have all come across blogs that are suddenly abandoned. People stop blogging for a variety of reasons: loss of interest, no inspiration or motivation to keep blogging, lack of time and energy, or the loss of a computer or internet access. Today I am thinking of sudden and unexpected events like illness, injury or death.

How would we know what had happened to you if you are suddenly unable to blog any longer? If you are a blogger with any number of faithful readers, you will know that we DO want to know if something has happened to you.

Here are some suggestions:

If you co-author a blog, then that's easy. Your co-author can tell readers where the other half of the partnership went.

If you are a solo blogger, but have a partner or significant other who knows about your blogging activities and is comfortable with the idea of writing a post, then give that person some elementary blogging lessons. A simple post of one or two lines that say something like "Hermione is in hospital but she will be back soon" will pass along the news. Be sure to give your partner the logon and password (or activate the automatic feature available in some browsers). Don't forget to tell the potential writer what his or her blogging pseudonym is so a real name is not revealed.

Give your significant other or a trusted friend the email address of a good blogging friend who can then pass along a brief message on his or her own blog. Instructions can be left in a sealed envelope, to be opened in the event of unfortunate circumstances.

As an alternative to email, your SO can be given instructions to leave a comment on a blog you visit regularly, saying you are unable to blog.

Create an "emergency post" with a generic message, post-date it, and arrange for it to be published at a future date. Blogger has the Scheduler option that works very well; perhaps Wordpress and other blogging sites have a similar feature. Just don't forget to change the date on a regular basis, so that the post doesn't inadvertently get published.

There is a good example of an emergency post on SpankedHortic's blog. Prefectdt created a series of holiday posts in advance, and one was automatically published each day while he was away. He also created an emergency post in case he didn't return on time from his Christmas vacation. As it happened, he was delayed, and his emergency post appeared.

I hope you find these ideas helpful, and if you can suggest others, I will  gladly add them to this post.