I had a conversation with a friend today during my break between classes. She was talking about her weekend and how she’d spent a couple hundred on dinner for her and one other person (because authentic Japanese food apparently costs a bundle) and she was going on about how since school had started in September, she didn’t have a lot of time for her hobbies. And then she asked me what my hobbies are.

Crocheting, making jewellery, knitting, writing, dolls. My usual answers nowadays. Despite the fact that I haven’t knit anything in a while, or been crocheting much, and the last time I made any piece of jewellery was three weeks ago (a necklace). And my dolls… Well, they’ve been getting a bit neglected these days. And then there’s writing.

“Oh? What kind of writing do you do?”

Poetry. Short stories. Novels. Blogging. I expected her to ask about the novels. Then I could break into my usual speech about NaNoWriMo and how awesome it is. Write-ins, online community, thousands of equally insane people doing the same crazy task as you (and some surpass your insanity because they get 200k words done in one month, as opposed to 50k).

Instead, she asked me this “Why do you blog?”

It took me a moment to come up with an answer.

I like having a record of things. I like writing, it’s quite therapeutic, in its own way. I like sharing (generally) and getting feedback on things. When I’m having a bad day, I write about it to just reflect on what has happened. When I’m having a good day, there’s a lot of exclamation! points! and I like getting feedback on my day’s happenings as well. I found it incredibly difficult to explain as to why I like blogging. Maybe I like the community aspect of it, being able to visit other people’s blogs and comment and then some people will return comments and tell me what they thought of my day.

“Does your boyfriend read it? Isn’t that awkward?”

Yeah, I suppose it is at times. I mean, I think I was a lot more… free about what I wrote about before I told him about IS.com. I swore a lot more (haha), and I mentioned more of our fights, I think. Lately there’s a lot of things that have been going on between Clay and myself that I just haven’t been blogging about. While blogging is great and it’s still quite therapeutic, I find that there’s a lot of things that just don’t need to be shared with the internet as a whole. I still talk about happy moments, the occasional fight (when it deems remotely necessary to be mentioned) but at the same time… I’ve made a lot of my old posts private. I have gone through a lot of the posts and made them inaccessible to people who aren’t registered.

Of course, I didn’t explain it like that.

“Yeah, Clay knows about it. He reads it sometimes, I think. Pfft, it’s not that awkward.”

“And how about me? Do you write about me on your blog?”

I paused at that question and gave a small smile.

“I don’t think so. Now study.”

My question to you, if you blog, why do you do it?

7 Responses

  1. This is a really interesting question. I may have to think about it for a while too. I think I have some of the same reasons as you. Writing about things like this IS very therapeutic, but it’s different from a private journal because you can get thoughts and feedback from other people.

    I may have to blog about this question later!

  2. It is an interesting question, indeed. Blogging… An interesting THING, really…

    I agree with you 100% on the writing thing. It being therapeutic. A *need*. While I skimp on blogging and put it off, I know what you mean completely. It’s like me and my books.

    Which reminds me, I’ve been meaning to ask you about your own novel writing. I feel like such a loser of a friend sometimes. Whenever I read your blog (which is more frequent then you think – I just fail at commenting XD), I always wonder about the core of your writing. I’d love to read bits. 🙂

    Why do I blog? I think I like the *idea* of it. I long to blog regularly but it never works out. A part of it may be out of obligation. I feel like the publishing industry requires a writer to blog, and therefore… I do enjoy it though. Once I get myself to WordPress, I always remember how I love it.

  3. Hm… I guess I blog as an outlet. Things I can’t really tell my friends I blog about. I don’t know why I’d prefer to tell strangers than friends, but for some reason I do.

  4. I blog for most of the same reasons you do. But with a private journal, no one really hears your thoughts or can give you advise or feedback from a different perspective.

    In a sense, blog writing (when compared to journal writing) can be a great learning opportunity while remaining largely anonymous.

    User: lockedentries
    Pass: access101509

  5. Hmm.. I don’t know why I blog, really. I guess because it feels good to vent and get things off my chest. I also have friends/family who I don’t get to talk to everyday and it’s a good way for them to keep up with what all has been going on in my life?

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