Why Blog?
I’ve already discussed the reasons why I blog so in this post I’m going to instead look a little more at how I actually perceive myself as a blogger.
I’m aware this could be considered quite an eclectic site as you’ve got things on here that I hope would be considered useful technical reference material, particularly in the fields of web design and accessibility, but mixed in amongst these you’ve got observations about the world, musings on current news items, mention of my life and how my football team are coming along, So it’s not a technical site, but it doesn’t really fall into any single category either — other than perhaps it’s my site, and therefore covers the things I’m interested in.
One of the things I certainly enjoy doing is sharing my views and opinions, explaining why I believe something, and the good old cut-and-thrust of vigorous intellectual debate when people disagree (unfortunately this appears to get frequently confused with the concepts of name calling, flaming, and calling everyone who disagrees with you Nazis).
Anyway, how do I see myself?
- Part accessibility evangelist
- Part web developer
- Part commentator (as in “news”, “socio-political”) etc
- Part sports fan
- Part autobiographer and inveterate meme-filler in
- …and part journalist/reporter/writer
I do feel I can legitimately lay a partial claim to this one as I don’t just deal with second hand reports (when I consider myself to be commentating on them) but there have been times when I’ve reported stuff that relates to my direct personal experience.
And this last one is important to me. While admittedly I’m not getting paid for this, I am getting a fair few hits, so there’s obviously people interested in what I’ve got to say (or how I’m saying it, or both). Plus writing regularly is helping me practice the craft of writing, after all. And given that more than anything else, my career ambition has always been to write for a living, it’s very important to me that there’s people out there wanting to read what I write.
Having articles published on places like Accessites and A List Apart is obviously a huge boost to the ego: particularly the A List Apart one, as that was less technical “how to” and more “creative writing”. Like I’ve said before, the tricky bit is in convincing somebody to pay me to write something for them… but at least I have the satisfaction of knowing that I’m being read!
I know I’m a writer, at least according to the Stephen King definition, which basically states that a writer is someone who will be constantly writing, whether or not they are being paid for it. Therefore I’m a writer. Hooray! I’ve just not yet been published in print and or/paid for my work, and therefore I can’t exactly make a living doing this just yet.
…but it’s a start.
So, loyal readers, you’re more than welcome to comment on any of the above, but I’d like to ask you a couple of questions in return. Choose the two that seem most relevant.
- Do you blog?
- Why do you blog?
- Why don’t you blog?
Hello. I am 
I’ll answer this question with this older post on my blog called “Why Do You Blog?.”
Like you, I blog because I love writing and it’s an easy way to get things read. When people say “oh, I simply don’t have time to blog” it’s probably because they aren’t that fired up about writing. I think if you want to do something enough, you’ll always find time to do it.
But I have a question for you.
Is what you write about in any way influenced by your readership? For example, if you received dozens of comments for your football posts and lots of responses to your memes, but not any obvious interest in you posts about accessibility, would you concentrate more on the more popular themes or continue to write about accessibility because you were so passionate about it?
So the question is, do you see your blog as yours, where you are free to write about whatever you want to, or do you think you can be influenced by your readers as to what you might write about in the future?
I know Steve’s question isn’t directed to me, but I want to respond with this: I write about whatever floats my boat. My interests about webby things, anyway, and of course my short fiction stories now and then.
I do very much see my blog as mine. That’s why (to my mind at least) it’s fairly eclectic: it covers the things I’m interested in — local stuff; web stuff; football stuff; jokes; and anything else I happen to have been thinking about.
To a limited extent it’s influenced by the readership — I tend to post on things I think people will find interesting or useful, but based on my hits it seems reasonable to assume that my readers are not necessarily the same as my commenters. Some articles, such as the thanatopobia one, generate a lot of comments from people who I wasn’t otherwise aware visited the site.
Some, such as the socialist’s ABC generated no comments.
Yet to me they are of equal value. So I think I write about what interests me, but I’ll probably take discussions further if it appears other people are interested as well.