why are you doing it?

So, I’m just over half way through the November blog-a-day challenge and it’s proving quite difficult to think of something to post every day. It certainly changes the nature of the way I blog. I was talking to a friend about it yesterday and he asked why I had taken the challenge on. Good question!

I suppose, partly it’s the good old “because it’s there” motivation. I discovered that the challenge existed and decided to give it a go. It’s also because my blogging has always been pretty sporadic, but had recently almost dried up. It wasn’t quite a choice between abandoning it altogether or going for it 100%, but increasing my posting rate – even if slightly artificially – seemed a good thing to do.

Which of course raises the question, why blog in the first place? To quote my own words back in January 2008 when I started :

“ I don't think I'm a natural blogger. I have resisted this for a long time. Have kept diaries in the past and always been keenly depressed by re-reading them.However, I have recently been inspired by the vast numbers of creative blogs out there - notably knitting, but other things too and thought it might be a good way of reviewing my work and encouraging myself that I have actually done something.”

That’s pretty much how I still feel about it. If I were doing it just to be read by other people I think it would be quite a different blog, but the fact is that I am using a public medium, so there’s obviously some desire for it to be seen and read by other people. It also means making sure that I only publish things that I don’t mind anyone else seeing (and that I don’t infringe anyone else’s privacy).

Although my blog is still largely for my own benefit, as time goes on one becomes aware that blogging creates a community. Some of the blogs I visit on a regular basis have masses of comments and I gradually noticed names appearing in more than one place and a kind of blog-circle emerges. There’s a kind of reciprocal courtesy in the blogiverse that means that if someone comments on your blog, you visit theirs and make a comment and gradually relationships are formed. Up to now I’ve been quite a shy blogger; visiting blogs, reading them and slipping quietly away, with perhaps an occasional comment. Recently I’ve felt more inclined to take part and have a voice in the conversation.

Sharing the blog on Facebook also makes a difference to how it is seen and read. Facebook oddly feels more public than the more anonymous cyber village that is blogland. One is more conscious of the people one knows reading and forming opinions. These are the moments to be grateful that there is no “dislike” button! It has also lead to some welcome conversations in the real world with people who have read what I’m saying and said that they enjoy it. (Thank you).