Friday, January 15, 2010

Blogging Without Obligation

I have a couple of friends who have started their own blogs lately and I've also been reading a lot of new and varied blogs in recent weeks, having signed up for a couple of online courses where most of my fellow students also have blogs and/or personal websites. The new bloggers have asked me how I think up topics to blog about every day. By comparison, a lot of the blogs I've been reading haven't been updated in quite a while, or have current entries that start with, "Sorry I haven't blogged for a while..."

Blogging every day (or almost every day) is a deliberate choice for me. It's a bit of a discipline, kind of like deciding you're going to make your bed every day. Not everyone does and it's not wrong if you don't (really, it isn't, although probably if you are under 10 years old and reading this and your mom tells you to make the bed every day, don't quote me to her!) I do think you should blog at least every now and again, just to keep it slightly fresh. I have a whole list of favourites saved on my computer and even if I know someone doesn't blog daily, I still check back every once in a while to see if there is anything new and always find it sad to see there has been no update for several weeks and even months. As much as I might miss hearing about what they're up to (yes, Stephanie, I do mean you!), I do understand that it's their choice.

As for topics, it's often just a chronicle of what is going on in my daily life. At some point during the day, I usually get an idea that I can use to blog about, whether it's in response to a topic someone else has brought up or something that happened to me or a place I visited that day. Keeping this blog has certainly helped me to realize I am surrounded by interesting people and things most of the time, for which I am truly grateful, as I am rarely at a loss for something to talk about. I'm more likely to be "not in the mood" (a.k.a. too tired/lazy/busy) to write than to be without a topic. Plus I jot down ideas when I have them, which I might not write about that day but will save for the future as needed.

Today, I was doing a little blog surfing - which is what happens when you start reading someone's blog, and they have a link to something else, and there's another link on that something else that takes you to another place and suddenly, you're 7 or 37 webpages away from where you started and can't remember where you began in the first place!

So that's what happened today (I was on the phone with my friend Heather at the same time, we were surfing the Internet together, showing each other pretty pictures of other people's art) and someone had this symbol on their blog:


When I clicked on it, it took me to this fabulous blog post about taking the guilt out of blogging. How keeping a blog shouldn't feel like an obligation. I could just copy her words here, because the author very kindly gives the reader permission to do so, as well as use the logo above and a couple of others she has developed, but instead I shall copy the link here and you can read it yourself if you so choose: http://www.tartx.com/blog/?page_id=233 because to me it's only fair you should get it from the original source.

For my new blogging friends, my advise to you would be to just dive in and start writing. Take a picture of something nearby and write a paragraph about it. Or just post the photo. Flip open a dictionary, poke your finger down and find a word, Google it and write about what you find. It doesn't matter how long or how mundane, just write. We, your loyal readers, are looking forward to hearing from you but as always, in your own good time. B.W.O.

No comments: