In a conversation on Facebook yesterday someone was asking me why I blog so much and so often. I answered them in a stream of consciousness mini-rant which is below. I currently have 3-4 blogs with this one, the Blog Awards one, IWillNotHold.com and another one I mess on. I’ll be launching another two in the next two weeks and I think another shortly after. One of them will be designed to at least pay for itself. Now, your turn, if you are a blogger, why do you blog?
Mine:
Why the obsessive blogging and writing? I think too much, I don’t unwind, I go to bed exhausted after putting a long day routing around information, consuming it, playing with it and exporting it back to a blog or draft post. When I wake in the morning it’s to my brain playing some song over and over and I have about 10 ideas and thoughts and new events I want to organise. Once I’m awake and the song is playing I cannot get back to sleep again. My brain is a cruel mistress I think, the more I do, the more I think I should do.
I also find that blogging allows me to pour out these various thoughts in my head and structure them so they make more sense to me as I fix them to make sense for others and I also find that as I write things down, I make new discoveries about what I’m writing about. I find new connections to disparate pieces of information I’ve read about as I start writing stuff down. It kind of keeps the excitement going, as the more you write, the more you discover.
Of course the blog posts too are a numbers thing. I know if I don’t do two blog posts a day I’ll get less visits and my ego likes the attention. I do find it very good training and it keeps me regimented a bit too. The fluffy links make me think in a kind of popculture mentality where like a magpie I pick up shiny things.
As I surf the net I’m categorising everything and checking to see have others mentioned it. The afternoon posts I try to make about a specific topic, general tech and business. These have a little more thought to them and I have some of these pieces in draft for months. I recently cleaned my drafts section on my blog as I think I had about 60 of them made of all sorts of crap. I write maybe a little too much. So yeah, that’s me and blogging.
I blog to let off steam, because I like writing .. for lots of reasons.
I currently run about a dozen blogs, but only 4 of them are active
Michele
I just waffle 🙂
I write 93 blogs on a daily basis. It’s hard fucking work.
I blog because I don’t get to swear enough in the paper I write for.
You need your own paper.
Oh, the usual: a bit of vanity, the thrill of interacting with people, and mainly to practise writing…
The wife and I manage 6 blogs and two ‘normal’ websites between us.
I read 93 of Twenty’s blogs every day and it lights up my censorware every byte of the way.
If I don’t get alla that stuff out, my head’ll borsht open like a wahhermelon.
Nothing as deep as you Damien, mostly so that I have an excuse to try out new mascaras
Do you want to buy one for me with the profits of your buke, Twenty?
Ah, but did you get my email the other day, Bernie?
To make fun of myself, the girlfriend, and everyone I know.
I blog for the long tail 🙂
’cause I just like writing. And it’s the occasional feedback that keeps me putting out the boring insights I have.
I blog, therefore I am.
I blog partly because I can’t switch off from work — I enjoy thinking about and analysing (as best I can) the reams of stuff I read every day. I also just like writing.
“Now, your turn, if you are a blogger, why do you blog?”
‘Coz it’s fun.
Do you want to buy one for me with the profits of your buke, Twenty?
Just the one?
I have a huge ego.
well put young man. Writing makes for a beautiful mind.
I blog to release the stress and occasional anger from work. And damn it it works! Plus some things that happen are just so nuts you have to share them with the world….
I blog because:
1 – It connects me to people who share similar interests.
2 – I sometimes read articles and realise that an angle or issue has not been explored/reported.
3 – It allows me to ramble on about stuff that matter to me!
I have a bit of fun, it’s nice to do a bit of ranting/chatting to myself/ picture copying etc.
Also it helps me to remember fun stuff i’d like to return to in the future
Me? Originally cause no-one would let me write for a paper. Not even a freesheet. And cause Twenty wasn’t rich enough yet to buy Una and me one.
Now? The work one for show stuff, pop culture nonsense, videos, weird shit, pictures I take. The secrets one because I’m a voyeur and the third one for stuff I can’t write because of work constraints.
And all for a sense of community I don’t get in radio.
Because I hope that it will lead me somewhere else…