Why I'm Here...Blogging, That Is

Why have a writing blog, anyway?

Good question.  I keep hearing it repeated--blogging doesn't have the same chutzpah it used to in terms of creating platform and garnering readership.  Not with Twitter, Facebook, and other quick-connect methods for creating a network.  Fewer people are blogging.  Fewer people are paying attention to blogs.

So why have a blog?

I confess--I don't have a blog to ratchet up a readership.  I agree--excepting a few choice cases, those days are done.  Perhaps fewer people are blogging--but fewer people doesn't mean that the value is gone.  As a writer, I think there are more important reasons than platform to have a blog:

1) I like keeping in touch with other writers.  Sure, Twitter and other sites allow this too--but not on the same level, in my opinion, as blogging.  I get to see what my writer-friends are struggling with, triumphing over, and just thinking about--in more than 140 characters.  Twitter may foster conversation and sharing, but blogging fosters a community.

2) Sometimes thinking out loud helps--and sometimes writing things down makes you accountable to them.  I want to make writing a priority.  See? I wrote that down.  And I'm sharing it with you.  And now I'm responsible for it.  Plus, the process of writing out our struggles and thoughts, and seeing how others respond, is a great way to tease out our thoughts and plans--at least if you're kind of a verbal processor, like I am.

3) It's a way to document the journey.  There's no denying how far you've come when you wrote down where you were this time last month...last year...five years ago.  And going down the road with companions--that community I mentioned in #1--is far preferable to going it alone.  Even for introvert-y types like me.

That's why I'm here--and why I've branched my writing blog and sewing/living history blog away from one another.  If I'm a writer, it deserves its own space.  


So here's my only other question--why do you blog?