Why Bother Blogging? (Part 2)

37 Replies

Joking aside, (and I wasn’t entirely joking about my desire for fame and fortune), I needed the writing practice. My writing had come to a halt and my brief career as a poet had fizzled out. It wasn’t a concious decision, I had about a dozen poems published, I was just getting into a better class of magazine when I let it all go. It was a combination of children and poverty, as I recall. There just wasn’t enough time for everything and I spent the next eight years writing match reports for various junior rugby teams and hiring myself out as a jobbing gardener.

Then, while I was working on the farm with Julia and the Quercus group I decided it was time to start writing again. The blog was my first step back into regular writing. After two thousand posts and establishing a habit which I am seemingly unable to break, I think it’s safe to say I write regularly.

I also like the company. I know it’s only virtual company but that’s good enough for me. WordPress friends are better than flesh and blood friends as they don’t disturb you in the middle of doing things and they don’t come round and eat your biscuits.  They also let you blether on without telling you to shut up. This is a model of behaviour that Julia could do with adopting. In WP there is also a touch of the feeling you get when you look into people’s back gardens from the train. (Or is that just me?) I’m curious to the point of being nosey.

The other thing with WP friends is that I was till able to visit during lockdown.

Apart from a disturbance in my shopping habits, and a morbid fear of sniffling strangers, I hardly noticed any difference between lockdown and my normal life,  This, I feel, says nothing good about my normal life.

Blogging is also a reason to get up in the morning, go out, observe things and set targets. You can say this about many forms of writing, but if I hadn’t started blogging there’s a chance I wouldn’t be doing any other writing. It’s a chilling thought.

I wouldn’t be doing any photography either, because I started that to add photographs to the blog.

You frequently see people making the same point about writing haiku, and it’s true. If you are going to write a lot of Japanese style poetry of any type you need to keep looking out for details.

If you get into the habit of observing it becomes easier to see things and, this gives you more to write about so it’s a sort of virtuous circle. (Julia saw a weasel today in the Mencap Garden. A real one, that is, not a jumped up school caretaker or a cowardly manager. It must be hard being an animal when your name is used as a term of abuse.

It’s particularly hard on weasels, who are quite affable, and don’t really deserve the opprobrium they get. When you think of the personal habits of the stoat, it’s the stoat that should be the term of abuse. The word itself sounds more like a snarled insult too. Weasel is a bit of a woolly word.

You also learn a lot from blogging – particularly as you browse Wikipedia looking for links for the blog.

I’m sure it does other things too, like keeping my fingers flexible but I’m starting to tire now and it’s time to go and read my new book. It’s a Kindle book about how to be an autodidact, and before anyone asks, yes, it’s a Teach Yourself book…

I’m going to use the penny picture again to tie this to the Part 1 post. I’m not sure if I’ll use any others as it’s too much of a faff on the old editor.

 

37 thoughts on “Why Bother Blogging? (Part 2)”

  1. Helen

    I wonder how we would have survived a lockdown if it had been in the 1970s… Still, for its ills, 2020 isn’t such a bad place. As you and many others have said, WP has been a welcome contact with the outside world. We might even have been blogging about normal things, but insights into how others are handling the restrictions was interesting in itself.

    Like you, I’m nosey. Back gardens views from trains are interesting. Seems a long time since I’ve been on one of those now but there will presumably come a day when either I think I could tolerate a mask long enough to go on one or the virus threat will have subsided.

    Reply ↓
    1. quercuscommunity Post author

      That’s why I always like the pictures of your back garden. 🙂

      In the 1970s we wouldn’t have had all the foreign students and ski holidays to spread the virus, but apart from that I expect we would just have died in great numbers.

      We wouldn’t even have had daytime TV to see us through.

      Reply ↓
  2. Laurie Graves

    Amen, Quercus! As others have noted, blogging friends are a treasure. Especially wonderful during this pandemic. Reading blogs, commenting, and then writing my own posts are activities that have felt normal during this horribly abnormal time.

    Reply ↓
      2. quercuscommunity Post author

        I am married, which means I have been conditioned never to argue when a woman speaks. Doesn’t mean I agree with you, just means I’m too scared to disagree openly…

        🙂

    1. quercuscommunity Post author

      I’m ashamed to say that I don’t read your blog regularly, though when I do it is always a pleasure. That’s one of the frustrations of blogging – the writing gets in the way of the reading.

      Reply ↓
  7. tootlepedal

    I haven’t used poetry to make myself more observant but the camera has been a life changing factor as far as stopping and looking goes for me. I had dreams of being a playwright but one short radio play sold in a year meant that a search for more remunerative employment was necessary.

    I like your views on the WP community. It is a pleasure to know you.

    Reply ↓
    1. quercuscommunity Post author

      It’s only a pleasure because you get me in small doses. A radio play is a notable achievement, even if it didn’t start a career. You are right about the photography too. I think all these things help make life better.

      Reply ↓

Leave a Reply to derrickjknightCancel reply