Why do you blog?

It's Hanno's birthday today. He's 72!  Happy birthday Hanno. :- )

I've been thinking a lot about blogging lately. I'm not thinking of subject matter, it's rather the ins and outs of blogging, what makes a successful blog, choosing the platform on which to blog, how long it takes each day and what I get out of it. These musings will be part of a series of blogging workshops for beginners that my friend Ernie and I will present in our area soon. We'll also develop a website and possibly have online workshops as well.

Above, here is Ernie during our blogging workshops work session last weekend.  And Jenni and Hanno below sitting in the warm sunshine outside, drinking tea.

Blogs are written and read for a wide variety of reasons. As a learning tool - to find new recipes and ways of doing housework, to learn more about people in other countries, for entertainment and inspiration, to connect with others, to influence others, promote ideas, sell things, improve writing skills, to create a record of family life, and many other reasons.

When I stated my blog it was mainly in frustration because I'd written the beginnings of a book and had that rejected by the publishers. I turned that beginning into a blog, and have never looked back. I eventually got a book contract with Penguin and had my book published earlier this year, but my blog has become an enjoyable part of life for me now and I continue to write as much as I can.

The blog world was unknown to me when I started writing here and as I uncovered more and more blogs and looked into the family life of so many other people, I became hooked. I was lucky to develop a group of faithful readers right from the start and once I connected with them and started to get to know them, either through comments or their own blogs, I realised blogging was much more than its common definition - "an online journal". It's much more than that.

I have made friends through my blog that I'm sure I will have for the rest of my life. I have learned so much through blogging and I have been able to express myself in a very personal way. Some days I wonder if I've gone too far and others, if I've held back too much. I guess I always knew that people would interpret my words in their own way and that is reinforced each day. As a writer you attach your own meaning to your sentences but the writer is not the reader and each sentence is open to the experience and understanding of every reader. My recent post about breakfast in the cafe was a prime example of this. Some read what they thought I was saying, some just read the words.

Overall, my experience of blogging has been one that I would have been poorer without. Of course, there are the occasional anonymous comments that are filled with hate and envy and luckily now my blog picks up most of them and puts them in the spam folder without me even seeing them. The rest I read and wonder why anyone would value their own time so little by writing in such a way. But the overwhelming response I get is from a warm and loving community of friends and like-minded souls who write about their own experiences, value being part of this blog and who feel they are part of Hanno and I. 

There are two things that I love my blog for. One is the community of people who share our values and who regularly comment here. They show me over and over again that we are not alone. Even though we don't have neighbours who live as we do, we have you. The other reason is that I have created the most wonderful record of our family life here. More and more I am seeing this blog as a gift to my family - particularly our grandchildren who might not see life as we live it now when they're older. I would have loved to have a day-by-day account of my own parents or grandparents' life. It would have taught me so much and I think I would have been able to understand and know them better. If you're looking for a reason to blog, or you're unsure about what to blog about, use a blog to record a year of your life - with photos. It will be a valuable and unique gift to your children and grandchildren.

But that's enough about us and why I write. Why do you write a blog? What do you get out of it? If you've had a blog that you've given up, why did you stop? What is the most difficult part of it for you? Tell me the pros and cons of blogging as you see them.