Blogging- Why?

I think it’s good to remind myself why I do this blogging thing, especially after a long break in blogging. A friend pointed out to me that I was spending increased amounts of time reading & commenting on other people’s blogs & other social media, and that the blog posts I’d written (if at all) had gotten worse in quality over time. I’m not sure if that’s true overall, but my style and quality  of writing is certainly uneven across different posts over time, partly because different posts are written for different reasons and audiences.

I blog for myself- to pull together ideas I’m developing, bits of research. I’m also a compulsive explainer and like writing my more in-depth explanations of various concepts here, so I theoretically have a more in-depth place for people to go if they want to learn more. Usually though, they just want the short-attention span version.  I used to use Deli.cio.us to keep track of my vast link collection, then never really replaced it after the website became defunct. I’ve developed instead the habit of making resource pages for this blog which contain the many links.

I blog to share ideas & engage in conversation with other folks interested in the same subjects. I also think the role of it changes when I have an in-person religious community to participate in. The opinions of various e-quaintances matter less when you have actual in-person people to meet with! We can either overplay or underplay the importance of online communities, they are often either an easy cure-all or the cause of many of our social problems. I’d much rather see them as tools and supplements for building in person communities while understanding that at the same time, for many folks online is the best option for reasons of geographic isolation, health problems etc.

At times this sharing on this blog has brought me more confidence in myself as a writer. Sometimes the comments & hits and links feel good when I otherwise am not feeling so great about myself.

I also need to figure out what the purpose/focus of this blog is, when it’s often been all over the place, and I have the additional blog on Witches & Pagans that I’ve been neglecting, as well as couple others. I’ve also been thinking about further developing some of the posts into articles or essays for magazines and anthologies.

 

Advertisement