Keeping a blog

I’ve been putting stuff on this blog for three or four months now and I’ve come to some conclusions about the experience.

1. It is fun. I like writing stuff down: telling stories, writing opinions, or saying whatever. I don’t know that I’m necessarily any good at it, but I enjoy it.

2. It is a nice creative outlet. Like playing the guitar or drawing, creative writing gets some of the creative juices flowing.

3. I’m not comfortable with the verb “to blog”. This may be because I still associate it with scrap booking, which is largely a woman’s world, I feel. Consequently, I prefer to think of it as writing stuff and putting it on the internet for people to read—with some pictures to help illustrate.

4. Comments are good. From friends, family, or random strangers, I like it when people tell me what they think. Comments make me want to write more.

5. It makes me see life as more of an adventure. I’m always looking for stories I can tell about things that happen to me. Even the unpleasant experiences usually make for good stories, even if I don’t get around to putting them up here. This is nice.

6. Because I keep a blog, I feel better about reading other people’s blogs. Whereas before it would have been kind of creepy, now I’m part of the community, so it’s cool. I like reading other people’s blogs because I get to see all sorts of writing about all sorts of stuff.

7. I’m glad I haven’t limited my blog to one topic. From what I’ve seen, some people have blogs dedicated to movie reviews, restaurants, cakes, or whatever. I like reading said blogs, but I’m glad that I don’t have any restrictions for my writing.

8. I hope it’s not boring. For some odd reason, I really don’t want to lose readers. I’m guessing that everyone who keeps a blog feels the same way.

9. I’ve discovered that I’m a few years behind the curve, as usual. Turns out blogging has been popular for a long time. Just like ankle socks and iPods, it took me a few years to come around.

10. The 2004 version of Word doesn’t have the word “blog” in its spell check. I’m with Microsoft (for once); I think we should come up with a new word for it.