Another Post about Blogging

Thanks to Michelle over to Scribbit, I found today's subject. Her twist is better balanced and more comprehensive, but here is my take and off the subject detour.

Her post is about nasty comments and how to deal with them. As usual, she covers the subject like a research scientist and by the end of the post, all questions about how to handle nasty comments are well covered. I have not had many, if any, nasty or negative comments on my blog. At one point early on, I would have gladly accepted and been thrilled to read "Your posts suck". Like a kid craving attention even bad attention.

Then I remembered why I got into this blog thing in the first place. For myself. My life long infatuation with the written word has left a pile of disorganized journals, spiral notebooks and hard drive saved ramblings scattered around. I have lost many words I have written because of my loose dog character. So the blog offered a safe and "Mike Proof" way to keep my thoughts handy for future admiration on my part. What others thought mattered not initially.

I switched off the comments for a couple of years. I could then delude myself that the reason no one commented was because I would not let them. There must be frustrated multitudes out there just biting at the bit to have their say after reading mine.

That delusion turned to reality when I did turn the comments back on. I was just another spindly tree in a forest of giants trying to find the sunlight. But I kept and still keep keepin on. Writing is an addiction for me. Since the day I read my first words, I have been fascinated by those words. Reading ideas and thoughts laid down in ways that made me feel like I was there, or inside the author feeling the feelings at the moment they wrote them. I admire those people who can use words to paint vivid pictures in my mind.

I aspire to be like them. Yeah, everyone has a great novel in them kind of thing. But I think it is more than that for me. I just like the attempt. Whether I am successful or not is beside the point. It is the process of putting what's in my head down on paper that I love.

And every so often, I will write exactly what I mean in exactly the way I meant to write it and I will come away satisfied. This is why I blog. To occasionally write something that is not just more words trying to make sense, but my own words doing for me what other's words have done for me in the past.