Sunday, November 06, 2011

blogging and the beast

Hello world. I haven't blogged in over a month, but I've been thinking a lot about blogging.

I had a professor who would ask me why I blogged. S/he thought it would take my attention away from my academic and creative writing. I tried to explain that blogging was a different kind of writing, that it's a way of sorting through ideas, that it's fun. The prof didn't get it at first, but a few years ago, s/he started blogging.

I started blogging in 2004. Seven years ago this month. Go team. I started because Kristen started, and Kristen started because Jeremy started. Nothing like peer pressure. But really it was about a conversation. For a few years, I was part of two groups of writers who all blogged. It was another way for us to create our community. There weren't a lot of other types of blogs out there yet--the only blogs I knew were "writer" blogs.

Now I follow over a dozen blogs. There are still writer blogs, but there are also art blogs and home blogs and wedding blogs and the all-powerful mommy blogs. It's not the same activity. My own blog went from being part of this small, almost exclusive, community, to a travel blog when I was in London, to a way of letting my family and friends know that I was still alive in Chicago.

All this just leads me to this (overwhelming) question of what this blog is now. Do I stay here? Do I start a new blog? Do I blog at all? I've toyed over the years with starting separate blogs for my not-so-secret wedding/event obsession. More recently I thought about a writing blog modeled after an exercise we used at NU that was usually successful. Or even a blog to chronicle my thoughts on religion, scripture, etc.

I'm not the same editorgirl who started this blog seven years ago. This blog is a record of how I've become who I've become. And I love it for that. But I don't know if I belong here anymore.

5 comments:

Lekili said...

Seems to me that part of the beauty of a blog is that you get to do with it exactly what you want.

But don't stop writing--your faithful readers love to get even a glimpse of what is going on in your brilliant head. If you go somewhere else I want in.

Annie said...

I really hope you continue to blog. I love reading your thoughts and feeling like I am staying in touch with you a bit better because of your blog.

Th. said...

.

(link>)

mlh said...

I know--isn't that odd? I think one reason why I changed my blog name & style (the anonymity of the 90s internet world into the hyper-personalized 10s) is that I felt like I couldn't be the same person. But I am, right? there are writerly parts of me (the tip of my right middle finger and my top left molar), and scriptury parts, and scholarly parts, and social commentary-y parts. But somehow I'm one person. You are too.


Weird, huh?

Anna B said...

I love your blog. Don't stop! Or, at least give me the new URL if you decide to switch.

 

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