Min Jung Kim has mapped out the life cycle of a blogger, summarized below:

1. “Start reading blogs.”
2. “You start a blog.”
3. “You become a stats whore.”
4. “You become really personal on your site as the online and real-life worlds start confusing you.”
5. “You faux ”retire” from blogging.”
6. “You cave back into blogging in less than 72 hours.”
7. “You decide to ”œget serious” about blogging.”
8. “You have a pseudo flirty im/blogging/flickr flirting relationship with another blogger whom you have never met.”
9. “You decide that you must meet other bloggers.”
10. “You take a step back and metablog about blogging and what blogging has done about your blogging.”
11. “See step 5.”
12. “You decide that as a result of step 10 and having repeated step 5 more than 3 times in the course of your lifecycle as a blogger, that you need to sanitize or reinvent your blog.”
13. “You either lose your job because of blogging, are afraid of losing your job for blogging, or join a company that builds blogging tools.”
14. “You decide to start an anonymous livejournal blog.”

I've done all 14—fuck, #10, and I mean the full text of it, is the funniest thing I've read in weeks—the unwritten 15th step, of course, being reblogging Min Jung's list of 14 steps, which can easily lead to insanity if one is not careful. It took me about 3 years to accomplish 13 of the 14, and in the 4th I joined a company that builds blogging tools.