It’s Not You. It’s Me.

You may have noticed that there are fewer links down the right-hand side of this page. About a month ago, I went through the list and deleted any dead links as well as those to sites/blogs that I just don’t often visit. It wasn’t a judgment on the person who maintains a particular site. It was not even a case of disliking those sites. The problem was that I had an ever-growing list of links to pages I seldom read.

For example, I removed the links to a few blogs that are wicked cool and full of funny or insightful stuff. Why? Well, I live in a desolate region known as Dial-Up Land. The blogs in question are image-heavy and it just takes too damn long for my glacial-speed Internet connection to load the pages. Broadband is not an option here. Hell, it takes me the better part of an hour just to open and answer a few e-mails every day. I can’t spend a lot of time waiting for websites and blogs to load when I need to be writing or working around the house.

At some point, I caught up in the whole hey-let’s-exchange-links thing. Other writers e-mailed me and offered to link to my blog if I’d link to theirs. Fair enough. But it got out of hand, kind of like the whole friend thing on the social network sites. I linked to pages I’d only read once. My blogroll went on and on. There are still a few links here that came to me this way, but they’re for blogs that I actually do visit on a regular basis. My new approach to putting up links is this: if I like your blog/site and go there at least once a week, I link to it here. I don’t care whether or not you reciprocate. There are plenty of blogs listed here that do not link to Maine Crime Writer. It doesn’t hurt my feelings. I link to those blogs because I like them. Weird, huh?

So that’s pretty much it. Everything you never wanted to know about linkage at MCW. Now go on and enjoy your long weekend (assuming you get one) by getting outside and spending time with people instead of reading blogs. Maybe talk about that great speech Obama gave last night, or play ball with the kids, or pick the last of the tomatoes in your garden or just sit under a tree with a good book. Go on. It’ll be fun, trust me. You won’t even miss the Wide, Wide World of Web.