Why do we all blog, I wonder? Surely not to raise our "standings" in the "Blogs with the most entries" list! I'm disappointed though to have dropped so low, but it's my own doing as I've not been writing here.
Or anywhere, actually: not working on my journal articles, not writing in my private journal.
I just emailed a friend I haven't been in contact with for a couple of years and told her about my blog, which got me thinking of what got me started on this. I am guessing it was in the summer or fall of 2000, when I googled (back in the day it was Alta Vista or possibly Lycos - remember them?) this person I had a little crush on and found him cast as the hero in a blog entry of a fellow student, for helping her through a domestic violence crisis.
So I read her blog for awhile (I still do sometimes) and that led to others. Two years ago, when I was unemployed and not going to school and nor working very seriously on my novel, and therefore really desperate for mental stimulation, I started reading lots of other blogs. I admired the writers' gutsiness for putting their lives out on the line for all to read, and I wanted to do the same. When the U debuted blogs this spring, I couldn't wait to get started.
I don't write every day because I don't feel I have something fresh to say every day. I love the spontaneity and candor of writers like http://blog.lib.umn.edu/piep0058/loverboy/, but it is hard for me to be so open about my life. Even though I love to read the daily details of others' lives, I feel readers would be bored by mine. Constantly seeking approval, gack. I wish I weren't, but I can't change who I am.
So for me, blogging is a form of daily writing practice - a way to practice writing FOR READERS (as opposed to my journal, which is just for me) in a way that is clear and focused and - it is to be hoped - even elegant once in a while.
Why do you keep - or read - a weblog?
Posted by otto0114 at July 28, 2004 08:16 PMwell, to be honest, I read your blog occasionally because it's frequently on the "recently updated" list on UThink, and since I, myself, enjoy seeing my own blogs on the list, I visit the UThink site often. Your site has a cool name, which drew my attention to it in the first place. Like you, I enjoy reading others' blogs for the mental stimulation and to know that I'm not the only one who likes to chronicle my life for a semi-public audience.
I think you were pretty gutsy--writing about B's recent surgery. What a life-changing event! I'm glad to hear that it went okay, and I hope that the future changes such a surgey can bring go smoothly.
Keep writing! I can't be the only one who enjoys lurking now and then...:-)
Posted by: Laurene at August 4, 2004 01:33 AM