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.
