Why Blog

I spent most of today reading Blogs. Not watch Vlogs as I think they are kind of pretentious. I think it's the camera. People think that they have to put on a show "for their audience." In that respect I'm no different.

However, a Blog is the modern day version of putting pen to paper. Written words tend to have more depth and thought behind them. After all it's not just flip on a camera, smile, and pretend to be chatting with a friend. There are things to deal with.

English, for one. American English, specifically. A language as blended and multi-sourced as the society that created it. The spelling rules are contrived and even dynamic. Tomb and comb are not pronounced the same but sure look like they should. Then there is punctuation. To comma or not to comma? Grammar. MS Word is always warning me about run on or incomplete sentences. And its not always right either.

So language is a barrier to Blogging. If you don't know your language, you could embarrass yourself completely. You didn't just misspeak, you wrote it down. The very action implies cognitive thought. You were writing, you had all the time in the world to check your facts before you published and you still got it wrong.

The process itself is also a barrier to Blogging. Unless you have a driving subject in mind, that first page can look big, white, and blank. It's going to take time to do this.

Then there is the vernacular. A fancy word for HOW you want to say what you mean.

1) One is about to invest minutes or perhaps hours of ones life selecting, arranging, and rearranging a group of words in such a manner so as to perfectly purvey your meaning to the masses. And in so doing, change them.

2) Yer about to lay it all out der and get em to give a shit.

Two distinctly different styles, both hoping to get their readers to change.

But change what? Their socks? Change their minds. The most difficult of all changes to make and you will not be there to explain exactly what you meant. You may want them to think, to empathize, to laugh, cry, realize, love, hate, or wonder in the magic of your words. Even if your only purpose is to entertain, and not necessarily to inform, what good is it if they don't get it?

The next to last element in a Blog is you. Or at least how you want yourself to be perceived by your reader. Are you to be a voice of authority, a poet, a helpless or hapless victim, a friend, a trusted advocate, a comedian, a mother or father figure, or an ass, airing yours and everyone else's dirty laundry to the world. Who are you? And who are you to them?

The last element is WHY? Why are you writing? Win friends and influence people? Be famous? There are some 100,000 Blog sites on the internet, public and private, and the chances of yours being read is slim. The chance of a response, or comment is about 1 in fifty readers. So don't count on that. So why do it. Why pour your guts out, preset a dissertation of facts and figure, promote your idea, ask questions of yourself and/or the universe? Why do it at all if it may never be read by anyone?

When I write a Blog it's a stepped procedure. Usually I open MS Word and perhaps a copy of Firefox on a Google search page because I never know what I'm not going to know. I usually have some idea, even a strong idea of what I want to "talk" about. That said my Blogs rarely end up being what I had in mind at the onset. Like stories I have written, they seem to take on a life of their own and go where they will. Then I go back and proof read, change, improve, finish thoughts that may not yet be complete on the page. Occasionally, but not very often, (some might say not often enough) toss the whole works.

Next I copy and paste into a program called TextPad. A text only program that strips out all of the invisible commands about fonts, paragraph structures, and so on that MS Word leaves in the document.

That done it's on to a suitable graphic, if I want one. Something to give the reader a visual anchor to my thoughts. If I have nothing, I may create something, or on lazy days find something on the webs and link to it. The later I like least and sometimes has a habit if disappearing as the other site changes. But I won't steal it. So graphic or no, time to upload.

Again copy and paste onto the site and again reread, and make last minute changes. Close my eyes, click submit, or publish, or whatever and walk away.

Why do I do it? I have to. I stopped for a long time and missed it. I tried other outlets, but I always come back to this keyboard.

When I surf the Blogs I try and remember just what it takes for me to do mine. If I think I can contribute, I comment. Just to let them know that someone read them. In this vast wasteland of Blogs, Vlogs, videos, and music, someone read what they wrote and answered. And in so doing, was changed.

Be Well.