What Made You Start Blogging?
I started blogging on a whim without really knowing the first thing about it.I’d been a member of a trading forum for quite a while and got to know some of the regulars there. About 18 months ago, in the “off topic” sub forum, someone asked a question on which was the best blogging software. He didn’t get much response. This was someone who had been very helpful to me when I was looking at web hosting options and I remembered reading something about WordPress on a web design site I looked at from time to time. I didn’t read any blogs then or at least I wasn’t really aware of them as blogs. I sent him a private message, said I didn’t know that much about it but that he might want to investigate WordPress as an option.
We started a long communication about the motivation to write and all sorts of other stuff. Something inspired me to give it a go as well and we learnt about WordPress together at that stage. He started the Boomtown Rap and I decided to start a business blog as part of the Semfire website.
18 months down the track I consider it to be one of the best decisions I made. It’s put me in contact with a lot of people I would never have come across otherwise. I’ve maintained the blog as strictly on topic related to my paid search and seo business but in the course of trying to be a better blogger I’ve also discovered some fantastic writers on a whole range of topics.
It also started a friendship with Ross from the Boomtown Rap and we’ve been on a whole lot of learning curves together related to blogging and businesses. It seems funny to look back on that first WordPress discussion.
So, I’m still a relatively new blogger but love the fact that I stumbled across it and it’s an area in which I still want to improve.
Anyone got any stories on how they first started blogging?
I started blogging after I caught up with an old high school friend who was blogging her pregnancy as a way to keep everyone caught up on news. I thought about it, looked into it online a bit, and finally just bit the bullet and went for it. My blog, and blog reading, snowballed very quickly from there.
I began researching it for a client over 3 years ago. At that stage I thought it was just another fad in passing - my client often picks up on the latest things. So I set up my own blog to spend time learning about it and got hooked in the process. Go figure! She still doesn’t get it and I own multiple blogs and am totally addicted. People can get charged for getting others addicted on things, can’t they? No, stop… don’t think blogging fits into that category. Still….
My start was a fairly random decision. I just read some stuff about blogs and thought I’ve always had plenty to say about all sorts of stuff, so why the hell not say it on the net.
I was almost posting in comments on other blogs! Apparently everyone but me knew it was going to happen sooner rather than later. As it transpired, they were right
Haven’t shut up since starting either….
I started blogging as an avenue to write stories and share with others like http://www.justanotherlovestory.blogspot.com Somehow I just got addicted to blogging (and now Entrecard-ing). Will soon reach my 6 year anniversary with my blog.
Can’t Wait.
Thanks for the stories. It’s good to hear how other people got started. There seems to be a lot of forum members who’ve been blogging for quite a long time which is good to know.
For me it started cause I am the ‘Aussie Expat’ living in the US and all my family is back in Australia… my husband and I are adopting and so basically started it up for them to see what was going on etc back here in the US… well, over time things have become a monster and I get alot of people reading my site now… it has become somewhat of a ‘journal’ for me too as I have been ‘documenting’ this whole adoption process… I don’t mind who reads my site… my only thing was don’t abuse it by leaving nasty comments etc… oh… just so you all know… there is Barnsey (Jimmy Barnes for those who don’t know) blaring out throughout the house here in Florida, USA… wonder what the Yanks around me are thinking of this screeching Aussie!!!!
Complicated - like many things in my life.
I went to Texas as a guest of poetry festivals in April 2006. The person who instigated this told me I should do a blog. I didn’t have a clue how! But I met poets there who had blogs, and after I got back I asked one how to go about it, he introduced me to Blogger and I began recording the Texas trip from the emails I’d sent home, which my husband had circulated among friends, and adding some of the many photos from the journey. Then a muso I met there (who actually lives in Scotland) emailed me to say I could hear his music on MySpace, so I joined it just for that. He said it was mostly for musos, but he didn’t see why a poet shouldn’t network there too.
Cutting long story just a teeny bit shorter, I fell madly in love with MySpace - on which there are hundreds of poets, many of them wonderful, and where I also met vibrant and brilliant older women and fascinating, original young people who sought me out even though (or because?) I am an older woman. After a while people started asking me to mentor them in energy work – because I am a Reiki Master, psychic reader, and (sssh!) witch – so I set up a special MySpace profile for that purpose, in addition to my personal profile.
Next I found the goal-setting site, and community, 43 Things; I forget how. Seemed like a good idea but I didn’t make it work for me. The only goal I ever kept was the quirky thing some people there were doing: writing haiku on Friday. I opted out of 43 Things but missed that, so I set up a MySpace profile called Haiku on Friday, on which lots of other people now come and play every week.
A MySpace friend recommended Writer’s Resource Center where John Hewitt was running a 30 Poems in 30 Days project. I joined in, so did others including a terrific poet who called herself The Cerebral Mum. We liked each other’s work, became friends, but she had trouble accessing my MySpace blogs, so I started doing new posts on my Blogger blog just for her. It all grew, and I’ve ended up separating the Texas trip from my other blogging. Ah, the poor Texas trip! Two years later, the recording happens VERY slowly; I’m still only half way through April 2006. Never mind, it’s mainly just for me.
After publishing a few of my poems on MySpace and then on my Blogger blog, I eventually decided to make a poetry blog, and to put it on Blogger on the theory it’s easier for people to access. Then a friend asked me to make a blog just for my own haiku, out here rather than on MySpace, so I did that too. At first I created a separate profile for the poetry blogs, then I thought that was silly and attached them to my original Blogger profile.
My husband wanted a website to publicise our books and other things we do. After some abortive starts with web designers who - strangely! - didn’t want to put in long hours without decent recompense, I got the idea of creating it by blogging. So I did. Actually a nest of 6 blogs at a new Blogger profile. We love it!
Somewhere along the way I tried Facebook because someone invited me, and very soon learned to loathe it, so I’m not there any more. I also tried Twitter because it seemed a great way to keep up with some far-flung pals who didn’t communicate very often, and with another who was travelling awhile. I do it from computer, not phone, and I never ‘follow’ strangers even if they (mysteriously!) decide to follow me. I like Twitter, but only in the way I use it.
I still love MySpace, where I have LOTS more readers than in this place I call ‘out here’. But I am having great fun out here too, finding new blogs to enjoy, such as this one. And now that The Cerebral Mum has introduced me to Aussie Bloggers, my world has expanded even more! I don’t see it ever contracting backwards again.