Blogging the finite
So I throw it out in the open for all you bloggers…why do you blog?
Sure, not a very original question for me to ask as many bloggers have asked this before with varying success but I thought to ask it again(yes I have asked before on a previous blog incantation) as I also wanted to look at my very own reasons for blogging & why I still am doing it.
I’ll start with something I know plenty about…me!
Why I blog
I love improving my writing skills & this is far the best way to do it in such an immediate way. I have written paper publications in the past(music/poetry fanzines) but they’re slow to produce. With blogging I am able to run with ideas for posts all the time & I do as I carry an A6 spiral note pad with me wherever I am. Putting ideas down on paper is one major lesson I have learnt & not forgotten from blogging. Without my notepad I’m sure I would lose 30% of the thoughts & ideas I have for future posts.
The love of writing is why I come back to my blog first over any forum that I contribute too. Forums are good for the immediate reactions to your words & ideas but the audience is limited to the membership & main topic area of that forum. Blogging gives me a freedom to explore the possibilities of new topics that I may never have tried before. I t also allows for a greater audience, if I am lucky!
This doesn’t mean every post idea gets to see the light of day, far from it but as with every action each idea in process can have a reaction elsewhere that I can work on.
I also like to get to know my readers via their comments on Sweet Flag & in many cases, their own blogs. Each new comment on Sweet Flag is a chance that the post I made can be moved on or developed further in ways I hadn’t originally thought.
The origin of this post
It all came about as I had noticed a distinct nosedive in activity in a number of blogs that I subscribe to in Google Reader. My concern was that maybe a number of bloggers were suffering with burn out. This seemed to be backed up by Alex at Victory Manual, a blog I have been reading since I first began blogging myself:
The pile of wood chippings is running thin; anymore, it’s not enough to fuel the fire.
I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to keep up with this bl-
Hey, an Oreo! Sweet.What was I saying? Oh, right. It was kind of fun keeping up on this blog, but I’ve lost the will to maintain it.
Another Oreo! It’s my lucky day.
There’s all this stuff that I have to take care of every day. I think it’s what we refer to in English as ‘life’. It’s always just up in your face. Demanding.
Taken from ‘Losing Steam‘ post November 25, 2007 at 5:44 pm
Google Reader now notes the frequency of posts per week when you search for a feed by title or topic. This can help in some way to knowing how much activity you can expect from a blog that you maybe searching for. Putting a topic in the ‘add subscription’ field rather than the normal feed address for a blog will give you a wide range of blogs on that particular topic
If you type Sweetflag in the add subscription field you will discover that I post 4.7 or 6.3 posts per week…good no?…The variation is due to two different bits of information that are the feedbunner feed & the WordPress feed. I take it as fact that the posts per week are over the lifetime of the blog in question.
Looking at Tobold’s MMORPG blog it’s still going strong with a 11.0 posts per week but it is noticeable when he is struggling for a MMORPG to play as he tends to fall back on gaming news or expanding on blog post ideas from other gaming blogs.
Gitr Knows WoW is at 4.4 posts per week but his great WoW blog has been around longer since 2005 & so the average that is the posts per week has lowered out against that of Sweet Flag.
Many of my other blog reads are slowing down in activity which is a shame to see. Events away from the keyboard just seem too addictive for some eh!?
Why do you blog?
Can seem such a simple question at the beginning of a blogs life, can’t it fellow bloggers but why now do you still continue where so many fall away?
It maybe that you began to blog originally about 1 interest or hobby but things do change, don’t they? Does that then spell the end for your blog?
Sweet Flag may have the current tag line of, ‘the heart & soul of a gamer’ but you are sure to find more than gaming here now & I like that. It gives, I feel, more of a full character to Sweet Flag.
Tobold has a different view & in his recent post, ‘Do I need a voice to be real?’ he deals with his thoughts on podcasting & why he doesn’t do it on his blog:
2) Half of the things I could possibly reveal by having a voice are things that I don’t want to reveal. Not that it is very likely in my case, but people have been fired from their jobs after their employer found their photo on their blog, and a voice might be just as recognizable. The other thing podcasting would reveal is that I have a bad German accent, and that I am a better writer than I am a speaker. If blogging would suddenly be completely replaced by podcasting, I would probably be like the silent movie stars who lost their career when the talkies came. I’d say everybody should stick to the form of expression at which he is good at.
This is what makes his blog ‘his’ in a way. He doesn’t want to colour his blog with too much of his own personality. Tobolds MMORPG blog is there for a reason & getting to know the man behind Tobold is not up for discussion, well not at his blog at least. Gaming is the all important & you have to congratulate him for doing a great job of that.
So we come back to that unoriginal question of why you blog…seems like an important one doesn’t it?! Maybe, maybe not…could a more important question be…can you answer it?
Tags: Blog Stats, bloggers, Blogging, Blogs currently read, Gitr knows WoW, google reader, Tobold, Victory Manual, why do you blog?, writing
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December 7, 2007 at 5:16 pm
[...] December 7, 2007 in Memes DM Osbon asked “Why do you blog?” [...]
December 7, 2007 at 5:58 pm
I blogged my answer many moon ago, DM.
I had to look in my archives to see what my reason was then. http://www.gitrknowswow.com/2006/11/10/why-blog-wow/
Here is the start of it:
If you head over there before I get home, there are artifacts from a database transfer and a missing image, but I’ll see to it in a few hours.
December 7, 2007 at 6:20 pm
Gitr
C’mon that’s old…what about now? Are your thoughts on blogging still the same as back in 2006? Surely things have changed…?
December 7, 2007 at 7:41 pm
Well.. l shoot. Thinking isn’t much of my strong suit at work any more.
They actually rely on me to do the stuff they pay me to do now. Let’s see how this flows.
I really love to write. Sure it sucks in school having to write on demand about stuff you don’t care about, but when it’s something fun and you get positive feedback because people don’t care about dangling modifiers, well, that’s a whole new ballgame.
I love the game. I also blog life when I get a chance to pull my thoughts together into a coherant article. I have a Moleskine notebook of topics going that I’m wanting to get to if I could get a break from school and work. Since last night was my last class for the semester and I get from the 21st through the 1st off from work, I think we’ll see some action on both blogs soon.
I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that part of the blogging experience has turned into a bit of a ego massage. To discover after years of writing in school that something must have stuck and that readers enjoy what I’m writing has been a trip! I’ve thoroughly enjoyed honing my skills to my audience and learning more about the art of blogging and the science of WoW.
After a lot of thinking about where the blogging thing is going, I got in touch with Tomas on several occasions about the big picture and we’ve entered into the partnership that you see now. With some guest writers and varying viewpoints, we are looking at it becoming a real community of like-minded bloggers and readers that are dedicated to really solid content, not just posting for the sake of getting 450 posts per month or getting advertising revenue.
Right now, I’m blogging to see what blogging brings. I’m enjoying it, it’s exciting, the friends are real, and it’s not a burden on the wallet. What more could I ask for?
December 7, 2007 at 10:06 pm
Hahahaha this was a fun post to read
I don’t blog, but they do massively interest me – it’s hard to explain the appeal. I like it as you almost get lost in someone else’s thoughts! A book has a story, an article has a point, a blog… well a blog sometimes isn’t about anything. With all the crap that goes through my head every day, I guess it’s quite relieving and fun to step into somebody elses instead! It sort of has the same sort of feel to it as a random conversation or ramble you have with a good friend, except as it’s one sided, it kind of translates into a weird and random string of a person’s inner thoughts and brainstorms. It’s just cool to see what other people are thinking about I guess!
December 7, 2007 at 11:10 pm
Why do I blog?
- As a creative outlet
- As a social outlet (its a way of keeping in touch with the wider community of adults who play video games)
- As a kind of brain dump
What do I blog about?
- Almost exclusively gaming although i have written some very personal stuff in my blog also. Its easy to write about gaming but perhaps hard to write something about video games that people want to read.
Why am I blogging less now than a few months ago?
- Time mainly. I am a very slow blogger – it takes me one to two hours to construct the simplest of posts. I am finding it difficult to make the time for that at the moment.
- Slight boredom with gaming as a topic to write about. Ive been playing Lotro for about six months and I don’t have much more to write about it. Im not sure a new game would even help. I think I need a complete change of topic. Some of my favourite blog posts have nothing whatsoever to do with gaming.
- Slight Disillusionment: Ive been blogging for a little over a year and I guess a sense of reality has set in. I envy Tobold his ability to write multiple posts every day and to hold onto a regular readership in the thousands. I can’t be Tobold however and the truth is I don’t want to be.
December 9, 2007 at 9:16 am
Gitr, Jonny & mbp thanks for leaving your thoughts…good to hear from a reader(jonny) that doesn’t blog too.
With the New Year of 2008 just weeks away are we all feeling confident that we will still be blogging at the same point in 2008?
December 10, 2007 at 1:33 pm
I started out doing it to keep friends and family up to date about where I was and what I was up to.
Now, I dunno… hubris?
December 10, 2007 at 1:37 pm
….hubris?! What’s that my man?
December 10, 2007 at 10:59 pm
Because I occasionally have thoughts, and it’s nice to think that my thoughts aren’t all just fading into oblivion. Even if nobody reads them, I like to go back to the archives from time to time and think, “Hey, he’s right! I like this guy.”
December 10, 2007 at 11:55 pm
Ah some self loving I see Aaron…I do think that there are times when we as bloggers can stunt our interaction with our readership by trying to answer all the ‘questions’ we may set out in our writing.
Sometimes for a conversation to flow, in the beginning, less = more?
December 12, 2007 at 3:06 am
Someone needs to create a Google-like tool that searches blogs and forums for particular topics and groups them as such. As in, ‘What’s been written on ‘crafting’ today?” and seeing every recent blog on that topic. Conversations around the blogosphere are great, but there are so many blogs that a lot of stuff gets missed.
December 12, 2007 at 7:01 am
Why…the ultimate question without end in this universe eh? Well, without going on some kind of philosophical tangent I will keep it simple…
I guess I blog because I enjoy writing and sharing my thoughts, also, it is basically one of my only outlets on getting out thoughts and ideas on things, over the few years since I started using blogger I have grown I would say and evolved, originally posting things about what I was doing and where I was at, nowadays it just seems to be whatever is on my mind or things I find interesting…the original title of my blog was W T F ?!?!, the meaning was obvious, I guess you could say I had that mindset that the world was wacked and all I ever kept saying to myself was W T F ?!?!…I can’t say things have changed much in 3 years, but with time we change, I guess I can see past the fake world presented to me and just blog for myself now…getting kind of deep, I best stop before I can’t dig out…hehe
December 12, 2007 at 8:33 am
Google alerts works OK on this front, have you tried it yet Aaron? Not sure if it hits forums as well as blogs but if I remember correctly you can specify where the alert will ‘look’ be it blog, news etc.
I think that yes some good writing is getting missed because there’s so much out there but then is it our duty as bloggers to highlight the good as much as we can & ignore the bad?
@ Sean – I really think that everyone should read blogs that are written by soldiers out in the field, just so that we all appreciate what they sacrifice for the rest of us. I know you are a military man, have you ever thought about blogging your past experiences? I for one would love to read them!
December 12, 2007 at 9:30 am
I usually answer that question by stating that blogging is better than writing stuff on game forums, where your thoughts aren’t properly archived, and risk getting eaten by the trolls. But of course “loving to write, to express yourself, to discuss your ideas” is a necessary step before chosing the right venue to do so.
December 12, 2007 at 10:25 am
I started blogging to learn about blogging.
Before I started I was something of a blog-sceptic and didn’t really appreciate the power of the medium even though I was reading a number of blogs. After discovering Darren Rowse’ Problogger through Steve Pavlina’s blog, I decided to take the plunge.
Like Gitr, I didn’t really know what to blog about at first, and then I read an article about finding a niche and how it was important to blog about something I loved. Well, there was technology, science fiction, software development, and gaming… particularly massive online gaming.
I had also read an article by Steve Pavlina about the money back guarantee concept. In it he said that people don’t do some things because they seem too big at the time. His solution was to use the concept of the 90 day money back guarantee. If you don’t like it, return it in 90 days money back no questions asked.
So I decided to create Stropp’s World for only 90 days, and only keep going after that time if I wanted.
Here I am 15 months later, still going.
So to wrap this up. I started blogging because I wanted to figure out what it was all about and perhaps turn it into some online income.
I keep blogging because I really enjoy it. I’m learning new things all the time. And my writing skills are improving… at least I hope they are.
December 12, 2007 at 10:50 am
i wrote my own post about it some time back. basically, it boils down to because i can, and because i want to.
and i love making friends through blogging too.
December 12, 2007 at 11:06 am
I wrote a similar post a while back [you're coming to the party a little late!]: Has Blogging changed me?
Great post though. Always nice to see other gamers on here.
December 12, 2007 at 5:44 pm
I write because I’m obsessive compulsive (as well as schizo) and finally gave in to the voices in my head. : )
Nah, actually it was obsession based, but was probably more grounded in a “oh, I’ve never tried that before” sentiment.
December 13, 2007 at 9:58 am
Welcome Sulz, Cat & Kstafford!
A theme that seems to be showing through some of the comments is the want to improve our writing skills which is very commendable.
@ Cat I am a ‘little late’ to the party as you put it but I did make a post on this subject on my previous blog which was poorly written…this new version of the post has worked fairly well I think. I have been reading over your blog, as a fellow gamer should, & note you also live in the UK close to London…we have a few things in common but I dont have a xbox 360 or PS3, shame. Do you game via PC?
December 13, 2007 at 12:15 pm
I’ll let you off then.
And thanks for reading my blog and it’s always nice to see people actually read ‘About’ pages. I’m pretty much exclusively a 360 gamer although I have a DS [not touched in months though and soon to come a PS2 [yes, 2 not 3] and a Gamecube.
I’ve not got an urge to use keyboard and mouse I guess and from experience of friends who constantly have compatibility problems with latest games or need to upgrade I much more prefer to just put the disc in and play.
Saying that I did try playing KotOR 1 on my laptop the other day and after patching/updating drivers it turned out that it didn’t work and there was no solution anywhere online apart from vista and KotOR 1; dont even try it. Shame though, PC games often have such awesome mods [such as KotOR adding a whole new planet and extra conversations or Oblivion fixing the leveling and other things].
But hey, there are enough games on the 360 that take up my time!
And this comment should’ve been a blog post I guess, definitely fits in length!
December 13, 2007 at 6:23 pm
Hey Cat!
Agreed. The number of visitors you get in a day you would think some would need a neon sign letting them know that there’s more to your blog than the front page! I always check out the ‘about’ link on any new blog I stumble across…think it’s a bit rude not to, a bit like peering through the window of a house that’s for sale but not going in to look around.
I think the mouse & keyboard are better gaming devices than a handheld controller for a gaming console. Plus I prefer to be at a desk when gaming which isn’t an easy thing to do on a game console…but hell you say tomatoe & I say tomarto!
December 14, 2007 at 11:12 am
[...] blog commenting Here at Sweet Flag I have just had my first blog post reach 20+ comments. For me it’s a milestone & it makes me happy that peoples thoughts on the subject have [...]
December 14, 2007 at 12:27 pm
Well I don’t think you could say I really blog. I occasionally get an urge to write and then it ends up on a website. I will eventually be a guest poster over at GitrknowsWoW but i will first have to learn how to customize my post outside of Blogger. I got into Blogging cause I was constantly reading blogs and still am my daily blog run has exceeded almost 30 blogs and I wanted to join the fun. I have not found my niche but I do blog mostly about games(WoW).
@DM I never thought about the about page like you put it and I will now go back and read all the about pages on the blogs I read.
December 14, 2007 at 2:29 pm
I will still be blogging strong in 2008. I plan on doing an average of a post per day next year between all of our writers. Nothing to overwhelm the readers so that they miss out on content… post coming soon on that pet peeve.
December 15, 2007 at 12:01 pm
@ Lance – I think some bloggers find a niche over time. I tend to blog to my strengths in subjects I love…anything else would feel too much like work! Yeah the ‘About’ page is probably the most unlooked at part of a blog…you have to remember most visitors are coming to your blog for information & will leave once they find what they are looking for or not whichever the case maybe. I’ve got your blog in Google Reader & so always keep an eye on it!
@Gitr – The transformation of your blog this year has been immense! Congrats to you & I think having other ‘guest’ writers has only made it even more a…can I use the word…’polished’ WoW resource.
December 29, 2007 at 1:56 pm
[...] this month I posted about blogging & if bloggers are feeling confident about carrying on in 2008. It gave Sweet Flag it’s largest response with over 20 comments & I believe that [...]
January 8, 2008 at 11:36 am
[...] I love to write. [...]