Wednesday 9 April 2014

Blogging

Where have I been? The thing about blogging is if you don't do it regularly you start to forget how, or why you do it and what you wanted to say in a post- or overall- seems to slip away more easily. You lose the habit, the routine, perhaps the desire.

Blogging has changed since I started.; far more of the online world (like the world entire) is about images.Far more blogs are also professional, which is great! Some of the blogs I first loved have become full time jobs for their writers and I'm thrilled for them.

With a professional blog though usually* comes some* compromise (*this isn't universally true, it's probably more true of people who need to work rather than people who don't- and there are a lot of people out there who blog as a 'career' but don't actually need a career). The blogging world used to be so friendly and it still is, but it's more professionally friendly now and that is also not quite the same thing- you wouldn't get drunk with your boss the way you'd get drunk with your best friend. Well you probably wouldn't (I have been really drunk with my boss).

I think blogs are generally at their best when they have a clearly defined topic or when the writer is really quite talented. Topics are simple, if you really like red pigs and someone writes a red pig blog when you find it you'll probably love it and maybe even make friends with other red pig enthusiasts. Lots of blogs have shown the world that there is a world of enthusiasts and connected them. For me the world of loving scent has been made so, so much richer from the blogging world.

So I think topic blogs are in some ways easy. Find a topic you know about or love and write about it, regularly.

Very good writing is harder to find and harder to pull off.

Wonderful prose can be about brillo pads or topping up your Oyster card and be moreish and enjoyable. The first blog I ever loved was a real blog which to me means a quite personal diary. The blog no longer exists but the author has now written several highly regarded books having been a non professional previously- you could tell that would happen because you wanted to read about what she had on her toast, she is a great writer. I wish I could find another blog like the one she wrote, I wish she'd still write it but I understand why she doesn't.

As there has been more noise I've actually gone back to magazines and books more- and my own thoughts and my headphones too (for music and for audiobooks).

I would dearly love to find a couple more really authentic blogs to visit every day or very regularly but I'm not sure if there will ever be the same phenomenon of people just writing for thirty minutes or so a day without a really end game, without it being a career, without knowing their ad prices and without worrying about the audience- that's the world, that's the Internet. I still love my blog, but I don't feel the same about being a blogger anymore.



7 comments:

Unknown said...

One of the reasons I like you blog because it really is not one of those blogs that isn t just supporting a business … but its truly about you and your life> the article that first caught my attention was about some red shoes that you fancied or had just bought … and felt every girl should have pair … or something along those lines! When u update I feel like a get an email from a friend! x

Jane and Lance Hattatt said...

Hello!

Well, we have no idea how we have found you in the labyrinth that is the Blogosphere, but found you we have and we are very pleased to have arrived.

Intelligent writing about topics which are of a personal nature, ideas and thoughts which are independent and free from dogma, words without visual interference from an album of pictures.........yes, this is getting to be rarer than a Dodo egg in the world of blogging.

We have always believed in writing for ourselves in our blog. If that reaches out in some way to others, then that is fine. Indeed, over the years several readers have become virtual friends and we do so enjoy the dialogue with them. But, as you say, increasingly the Blogosphere is not what it once was and commercialism in some form or another is ruling the day.

Stay true to yourself. It is a small club, but there are other members out there. We are your latest followers!

Rio said...

I really enjoy reading your posts! I look forward to reading the posts when I see them in my inbox. If you love blogging, just do your thing! That's what makes it so great :o)

Anonymous said...

pretty nice blog, following :)

Martha said...

I keep lamenting the loss of the idea of the amateur nonprofit blog.

I tried to discuss blogging on a writing forum where I hang out, and so very many people assumed that blogging was about making money, to the point that if they weren't aiming at making money, they felt silly.

I hang out at a forum about blogging that seems, finally, to be owned entirely by the link spammers.

I occasionally participate in BlogChat on Twitter, and increasingly want to throw something at the person who, in the midst of the rare, rare conversation that's actually about writing, throws in, "And it's good for SEO" as if that's the clincher.

But I do still love the blogging. Or maybe I'm just determined to still love the blogging. I'm in a fair little blogging slump, but that's not about blogging, it's just about me.

I think.

wildnettle said...

I like your style

Anonymous said...

I'm amazed, I must say. Rarely do I encounter a blog that's equally educative and interesting,
and let me tell you, you've hit the nail on the head. The
problem is an issue that not enough folks are speaking intelligently about.
I am very happy that I found this during my search for something relating to this.


my weblog grow taller 4 idiots