12. Writing a Blog Post *
by admin - April 25th, 2008.Filed under: *, 11-20. Tagged as: blog, connecting with people, Google Analytics, IWantSandy.com, Meebo.com, skills, writing.
I kept a journal sporadically throughout my teen years–what teenage girl doesn’t?–but writing a blog is quite a different exercise. Your journal is your own, your secrets. But a blog is public for the world to see. Anyone who comes across your blog can read it.
When I first started blogging, it was a journal for me. I even had a password-protected blog so that only my closest friends could read my rantings. I loved writing that wasn’t related to my school work (except for the complaining that occasionally happened, well, okay, more than occasionally). I loved sharing my inner thoughts with my friends. I loved getting their feedback and responses.
Then, we moved to Germany for my job. And I found myself over 4,700 miles from my friends and family. In the age of the Internet. What better way to keep in touch than a blog? Email works, but it’s essentially a conversation between two people, even if you send an email out to 60 people. Blogs, on the other hand, are open for free conversation. As your readership grows and people become familiar with the format, the conversation gets better and better. So I opened my blog up so that anyone could read it, and I started writing about our life here.
And I started writing about interesting products I found on the internet, like IWantSandy and Meebo. Then a series of posts on Google Analytics for bloggers. And I got visits from people that I don’t know. The conversation was getting bigger, and I started to realize that I don’t only have to journal in my blog, but that I there are people out there who want to read some of the non-personal posts I write.
So I started reading what one of my writer friends was reading: all sorts of articles about being a better writer and blogger. I started publicizing my blog more. I started paying attention to my analytics results and writing to my audience.
In the end, I found a hobby that helps to build a skill that I am teaching my students, albeit in a different genre, and I found a hobby that not only keeps me connected to the people I love, but that also connects me to people with similar interests and needs. And those are the reasons why writing a blog post makes me happy.