Are you a blogger? If so, why do you blog?
I ask because a few people have asked me the very same thing quite recently and, as with any question for which I don’t have a simple answer, it’s been running around and around in my head, until the only way to stop it is to write it down.
So, for me, that’s one answer; I blog about things which occupy my thoughts, if only to get them out of my head. Why not? It’s my blog and I’ll write if I want to! That’s the beauty of the internet. One can throw any amount of brain dumps out there and de-clutter one’s own mind. It’s a sort of mental Feng Shui, I suppose. My process is that I think hard, I marshall my thoughts about the subject on my laptop and then I publish my blog. Which begs another question. Fine, if I feel that I’m helping my poor old brain de-stress by lassoing scampering questions or problems and wrestling them onto a screen near you, then bully for me, but why do I want to inflict my answers onto an unwary public? Hmm, that’s a trickier one…..
Now, if we go back to the original question, it must be said that the questioners weren’t asking about my blogs per se. Their questions were more along the lines of ‘why blog at all?’ rather than why do I blog. It would appear that either their experience of blogs was of the ‘This morning I went to the Post Office and then had ham for lunch.’ variety, or that they couldn’t conceive of communing in such a public way with complete strangers and therefore couldn’t understand why anyone else would want to. I’m not decrying bloggers of the former persuasion. If they feel that a diary minuting their every action is useful for them or anyone else, then great. It just doesn’t do it for me and I can’t believe that it would be remotely interesting to anyone to know that I watched ‘Layer Cake’ again last night. I did, by the way, and enjoyed it more than the first time but I digress! No, my reasons for publishing are very different.
Firstly, my blogs are platform-building. I’m a writer, with a specific style, and I need to get my words out there to as many people as I can. They can then make an informed judgment on whether or not they want to buy my books. Generally speaking, if they like my blogs, they’ll like my books and will buy them. And if enough of them do that, then I can carry on writing instead of doing a proper job, which is fine with me! Also, I’ve been heartened to learn that quite a few of my friends pass my blogs on to friends of theirs, as they think that they might find them helpful – which they probably wouldn't do with the ‘Layer Cake’ variety– another reason why I don’t write that sort of blog.
Secondly, and I think that this is the more interesting point, I publish my blogs because otherwise, no-one else gets to know what I think or how I feel. I live – and spend a fair bit of time – alone, so how else do I get to communicate? (And, even better, how else do I chat without being interrupted?!) Yes, as a friend pointed out some time ago, publishing my blogs is cathartic for me. Sometimes people respond and I’m very happy to engage in conversation, but it’s enough for me that I’ve communicated something which has been occupying my thoughts. It’s almost like keeping a journal and letting anyone, who wants to, read it.
That’s why my blogs are always personal. I don’t write about world events, politics, celebrities or business. I have opinions on all these things, of course, but I don’t want to blog about them. My observations and comments are reserved for the fundamentals common to everyone, such as loneliness, jealousy, empathy, fear, spirituality, love or hate. I make sense in my own mind about how I feel about certain things or how different experiences have affected me and then I pass those thoughts and feelings on in the form of a blog. I do so in the hope that my making sense of them will help someone else make sense of their own and feel less isolated or alone.
So, there you have it. I blog to help – myself and others – and if I have succeeded with even one person, myself included, then they’ve been worth the effort.
