Homework: first day of school/becoming a writer

Homework Assignment:

~Write a blog post about why you have a blog.



“of course dear friend...who are you writing it for anyway?” That was the answer to the question I had posted: Do you like my blog? Like most (all?) bloggers, I had fallen into a pit where numbers mean everything: number of comments, number of hits on your site. There I was, pouring my heart and humour into all I presented, only to get the visible acknowledgement of four people. Four! Was it worth it?

It was. And it is. Since June, 2005, I have worked on my blog. There have been times where I’ve come thisclose to deleting it all, and days when I feel like posting every single thing that happens in my life. Though I am a mommy, I don’t feel that my blog is A Mommy Blog. It doesn’t have a theme, other than this: it’s mine.

I blog for different reasons. At first, it was because I wanted to join the seven or so other cool kids in (blog)town; I still read their blogs. I also looked at it as a place where I could stretch my writing muscles (though I’ve come to learn that writing a blog post is so much more different, at least for me, than writing an essay). Sometimes it’s because I feel so overwhelmed – or maybe sensorially overloaded –- that I feel that if I don’t write something down, I’ll forget it ever happened. Much like a journal in this sense, I often cringe when reading my older posts, but then smile at how much I’ve grown and then wonder how mortified I’ll be in another four and a half years at what I’m posting now. Sometimes I blog to help others with a cause (auctions and whatnot), sometimes my posts consist of nothing more than links to others’ posts that I liked for one reason or another. Sometimes I begin a draft and, out of unfounded fear that it’s not perfect, never publish.

One of the main challenges (remind me to tell you about others in another post) in having a blog lies in balancing being true to who I am with knowing that I’ve got an audience who, by virtue of reading and potentially commenting, bring with them judgements – praise or criticism. Even so, I've learned - and continue to learn - is that being able to have this tiny space wherein I say whatever I feel like saying because it's mine, that is, having my blog, for me, is still worth it.

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