Thursday, November 22, 2007

Why I blog.


Sharon B. (see link on my sidebar) has been asking some very thought provoking questions in the last few days. Sharon wants to know about if and why we leave comments on other people's blogs, and why we blog in the first place.

I belong to the TAST Challenge webring so I can easily manouvre around the blogs of those people who were taking part in the TAST in 2007. I also belong to about 12 Yahoo Groups (forum style groups with special interest focus) as well as a couple of online only groups, such as Australian Costumers' Guild and Southern Cross Quilters. Then there are my forum discussion groups such as LiveJournal, Truly Victorian patterns and Sewing Academy where people also put their blogs in their signture line. I usually click on these fairly regularly, you just never know what kind of valuable information you are going to find at the end of that link. For instance, one of this morning's posts in my 19th Century Women's group linked to the British Museum costume prints and I found this lovely print of two ladies sewing in the 1830's. Isn't it exquisite? Well it is to a costume nut like myself anyway.

So I tend to comment on blogs where I have something relevant to say about the post. I like to say a bit more than "well done" or "I like your work" without re-writing "War and Peace". I don't mind it when people post a short comment on my blogs, at least it tells me that someone is reading my blog, and since I put a Visitor's Map on the blogs I can see where people visit from, and that is very gratifying. I've never really kept a written diary, although I was writing a semi-biographical short novel in an exercise book once while a teenager. So I see my blog as a form of diary or journal I suppose, and since being encouraged by my friend Jenny B. (see link on sidebar) to start a blog, I have gone a bit overboard ! I guess I've always been a "communicator" but before blogs and forums I used to spend a lot of time on the phone when the kids were little, talking to girlfriends and relatives, because as a non-driver personal visits were difficult.

I've "met" a lot of very nice folk through forums and blogging, and I intend to keep doing it for a very long time. Have you checked out Olive Riley's blog (see sidebar link) Olive is 108 and blogging (well helper Mike does type her words) How wonderful to share Olive's world through her blog, and I guess that is also my reason to blog. Welcome to my world!!

2 comments:

sharonb said...

I think anyone who has an active curiosity loves blogs and the net generally because as you say you never know where a link will take you.

Then there are those that are curios and want to share what they discover - that makes a blogger.

There is a definitely an element of wanting share in the drive to write a blog and it is even nicer when what you share is appreciated

thansk for a great post

Melissa said...

WOW Sharon said that well! I was just wanting to comment about Sitemeter (http://www.sitemeter.com/) that I use that to see who visits my blog. It's really interesting to see. You can see referrals to your blog like if they used google search and it came to your blog, how long they stayed, and their location and such. So even if no one comments you can see activity.