Have I Gone Astray? Help!!!

I launched my blog two months ago. 

Well, a little less actually, since the first posting was on December 12, 2011. 

From the beginning, I have been receiving encouraging remarks, mostly given in private, either through email, sms or in person.  These compliments made all the hard work felt worth it. 

Quite a handful, however, said that the blog is way too heavy and too serious for them.  I shrugged it off, saying that the blog is meant to be serious.  It is a commentary you see.  How can a commentary, or tafsir, be light.

One English teacher, a daughter of my good friend, said that it is a nice cut and paste work.  Hah?????  Is my writing that bad?  Have I failed to write coherently, as the cut and paste work generally is?  Or, does she think that I don’t know all those stuff I wrote?

Some asked me whether I have my sources.  What sources?  I couldn’t write all those things without having references.  This is a blog, my dear.  I am not going to burden myself and my readers with bibliography.  I am not doing a Ph.D. thesis, you see.

In short, I chew all those feedback but then spitted them out, without digesting them.  They all seem like natural comments to me. 

But last night, while having a talk over a dinner with my colleague, who used to work with me some years back, but is now separated by the South China Sea, for I am in Malaya (as the West Malaysia used to be called), and he is in North Borneo (as Sabah used to be called), I felt rather disturbed. 

He is a follower of my blog.  He has been reading it religiously.  "It is quite a task to read your blog," he said.  "I have to scroll up and down to keep track of the idea.  Maybe because of the subject matter, or perhaps due to my English command, but that’s not how I want to read a blog," he continued. 

It is rather boring, too academic, and feels like reading a textbook.  That was the gist of his comment. 

No one has told me that my blog is boring, or too academic, or reads like a textbook.  I can brush off all other comments.  But this comment I cannot ignore. 

You see, I can laugh it off if people say that it is heavy, for Seerah and History are not joking matters.  But when someone says that it is boring and too academic, then I feel concerned.  Yes, I care about my blog.  More so because he is one of those who religiously follows my writings.    

Well, I didn’t lose sleep because of that comment.  It is not a sin to write a boring blog.  A futile exercise, perhaps, but can still be remedied.  Besides, the pageviews keep increasing.  Hence, all is not lost…not yet.

In the morning, I got another surprise.  A facebook friend of mine dropped a message: About your blog, I haven’t ventured into it yet…too heavy a reading, he he he….

In case you are wondering, I didn’t expect that kind of comment from her.  She is an academician, you see, a lecturer at one of the universities.  If my blog is too heavy a reading for a person of her standing, then what chance do I have with the less academically inclined folks?

Now my dear readers, if you read this far, please take a moment of your time to answer this question: Is my blog too heavy a reading for you?  If you don’t find it heavy, do you think that it is a little too heavy for most people?

If you don’t mind and have some ideas, please suggest how I can make it readable, enjoyable and fun without compromising the substance.

I thank you all in advance. 

P.S.: If you have something to say in Malay, can too.