Why do you blog?

This question (the one in the title, not the one in the cartoon :-)) was asked of me last week by a friend thinking of jumping into the blogging world.

“I blog therefore, I am!” I teased.

But really it is more complicated than that. I’m sure many of you who do have a blog (I know a few readers here don’t have their own sites, but just enjoy reading others) will have multiple reasons too.

I have many blog friends who are writers by trade. Their sites give them a place to practice their writing, or to support their books, or to hopefully attract publishers for future books. It’s a source of income for them either through ads on their sites or through the site helping them get published elsewhere. There are many many brilliant writers like that out there entertaining us regularly on every topic you can imagine. I love them and applaud their ability to earn from their sites.

In case it’s not painfully obvious, that’s not me 😉

Writing of any kind has become an acquired taste. I have no natural talent. I’m a numbers gal. Very black & white. Very little nuance. My humor is almost entirely sarcastic which does not always translate so well online.

I’ve never been a diary gal. Way too impatient for that. Could never sit at the end of the day & write out events/thoughts/feelings. Didn’t feel the need.

I got dragged into this as a follower. Everyone else was doing it so why not me? And by “everyone” I mean a small hand full of people from my two main internet circles of friends.  Ironically almost every one of those bloggers has since gone silent. But here I am, still posting away almost 5 years later.

So, now that I’ve said all the things I’m NOT – WHY blog?

After the initial thrill of  “joining the club” I noticed some things. Like how feeling the pressure to update made me look at each day a little differently. With a ‘writers eye’ you could say. Which made me notice details that I probably was missing before. I also realized that it was a great way clear my head. If something is nagging at me, if I find a way to write about it, then that issue gets out of my head. I now do think of it as a journal. Different from a diary as there are no deep dark secrets being revealed  (trust me, there aren’t any of those anyway. Like I said. Black & White) but just a chronicle of life. I’ve had fun when something I wrote brought lots of people to read/comment even though that’s not my goal. I’ve loved “meeting” bloggers online and learning from their writing styles. I’ve actually learned to enjoy writing!

So – I blog for me. Because it’s added nuance & color & friendship to my life.

It’s also darn handy to have as a resource when you are arguing with your teenager over when something happened & you can search your archives and say “See? I was right! It was 2006!” and he has to just zip it!  🙂