To blog or not to blog...that is the question!

1-9-09

I’m struggling to understand, yet intrigued, by this whole blogging phenomenon. I understand the value and have even participated in journaling from time to time over the years. I benefited from this practice in my 20’s as I struggled to understand myself and searched for some direction in my life. Yet, this journaling was a private, emotional, and very spontaneous writing, never worrying about spelling, grammar and punctuation, since it was only for my eyes.



However, public journaling, which I consider blogging to be, seems more like a chore to write a term paper or essays for English creative writing class. Well, thanks to spell check, I can’t really use my poor spelling skills as an excuse, and my poor penmanship is now also a moot point…… But consider yourself warned; will have to put up with my grammar and vocabulary problems.


My next hurdle to overcome is wondering WHO would be interested in my blog? Is blogging still mostly a journaling discipline done for SELF ……and IF a few friends might just happen to want to join in my random thoughts, the more the merrier?


I must admit that this is what has happened to me recently when two co-worker friends started blogging and were kind enough to send me their blog links. Reading their daily posts has quickly become a morning ritual as I sit down to start my work day.

I believe I would not find blogs written by strangers to be of much interest to me personally, and really the appeal in friends’ blogs has been to feel more deeply connected to them and their families.


I have found that reading my friends’ blogs is like reading a post script to one of your favorite novels. One of those really good books where you have fallen in love with the characters so much that you were in mourning when the story came to an end…. AND you long for the chance to spend more time inside their world.


Now, the interesting novel being read could be MY LIFE and the favorite characters of this story are MY friends and family. In fact there are many people in my life I would love to read their blogs if they had one: My sister, my niece, my nephew, Molly, Steve and Vanni in Alaska, Amy and Julia in Ohio, my Allison Avenue gals, cousin in Oregon and LuAnn in Texas, Sam & Susan in Iowa City, Kelley, Sue L., even my husband.….. just to name a few.


My Aunt Joanne would have been great at blogging about our family history, since she had tales of my father and their life going up in Cedar Rapids Iowa in the 20’s and 30’s and she was good at storytelling. Sadly she is gone now.



With that in mind, to all my FRIENDS- I urge you to give blogging a try, if not for me, do it for YOUR families. Don’t you think it would be fascinating to find an old journal or old letters of your parents or grandparents in which they shared their perspective on their daily lives? I have a love of history, so this sounds appealing to me! After all, we really are living in some interesting times it would seem! Here is our chance to contribute to recorded history.



NOTE: you can get a FREE blog started at http://www.blogspot.com/