Why I blog

I’ve always enjoyed words, reading and writing.

At school English was my favourite subject, with Physics a close second (if there had been a computing O Grade I would probably have taken that instead). My parents are both teachers and much of my inquisitive nature was fuelled by books; I still have, and treasure, a set of Readers Digest encyclopedias gifted to me by my late grandparents.

My Dad was always interested in computers, so from the days of having a BBC Micro, and then an Apple Macintosh Plus in the house it’s no surprise that I got interested in those too.

Put computers and words together and writing seems to be the obvious next step. From the initial wonder at watch words form on a screen, to a job as a technical writer, it’s far to say that technology and writing have always been a big part of my life.

My first blog post was hand crafted and uploaded to my own website, which had been in existence for a couple of years, on the 2nd of June, 1999. It was an odd moment, realising that something I’d created could be seen on the internet.

Fast forward a year or so to July 2000 and a new service called Blogger was launched and made that process all the simpler! From there it’s safe to say that blogging, as the first stage of social media, become very popular. Since then it’s been through a few dips but it’s definitely back on the map now.

Being a blogger in Scotland was a little bit odd back then, there were so few of us but that did mean that, over time as we all found one another online, it did setup some friendships that became much more than just ‘people I know who blog’.

For my part, I guess I should own up to having run a website called Scottish Blogs.

The year was 2002, and webrings were ‘the thing’. If you weren’t part of a webring, or five, you weren’t one of the cool kids.

Blogging Brits was one of the first I joined and soon I realised that Scotland needed one too and so in late November 2002 the Scottish Blogs webring was born.

By December 2003 there were 100 other members and a year later I created a directory website and moved away from the (by then quickly losing popularity) webrings. It was running that website, and organising the first few blogmeets that allowed me to meet some wonderful people, going on to attending (and doing a reading at) one of their weddings and visiting them in Hungary.

Since then I’ve had three separate blogs, now merged into this single website, written more words than I care to remember, been mentioned in newspapers, been on the radio, and through it all been lucky enough to get to know and meet some amazingly generous, lovely, smart and funny people from all over the UK, many of whom I’ve known for years and, over time, have managed to meet.

I still blog today for the same reasons that I started writing:

  1. I blog for me, I know others may read what I publish and I welcome the conversations it can spark, but this is my space.
  2. I write to process the thoughts in my head, that is a constant theme throughout the last 14 years.
  3. Because I enjoy it.

I write all this as, it seems, blogging is back on the rise. What goes around comes around I guess?

Comments

  1. Scottish Blogs! Heavens, I was in that! I think that’s where I first encountered you. Aye, the Scottish blogosphere was so much smaller then wasn’t it!

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