“Why do you blog?” I ask this question of every featured blogger, and the results are interesting as well as diverse. I asked my NBN partner before she joined the team:
Seabrooke, Why do you blog?
I’ve been writing to the web since 2002, primarily on a personal basis, as a way to keep in touch with friends. I started The Marvelous in Nature last winter. It’s hard to say exactly what I was thinking at the time, but it was probably tied into my mid-winter cabin fever as I waited impatiently for spring, and the plethora of life to arrive with it. I thought it would be fun to start a blog where I share some of the things I was seeing - and also use it as a tool to force myself to learn more about said things. I’ve learned a lot about many things that I might previously have stumbled across, said “huh, that’s cool”, and carried on. Also about things that I thought I knew all about already, but end up learning more.
I could ask myself as well, Wren, why do you blog?
I started blogging because I’ve always loved playing with technology and a blog was the natural outgrowth of my website at the time. I’ve had a long-time online presence, back to the days of dial-up BBS sites and acoustic couplers (If you’ve never used an acoustic coupler, count your blessings! ). I found that the blogging community was the natural evolution of the BBS community as well as the technology, and I’ve enjoyed building networks and finding friends ever since.
Originally my website was created to share my interest in backyard wildlife habitats and encourage others to do the same. Over time, I’ve come to realize that different community members value different aspects of nature and respond in their own way. I’m less interested now in promoting specific actions than I am in increasing the wonder and appreciation of nature that leads people to protect animals and wild places.
Why do you blog?
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I recently had a reader tell me that bloggers shouldn’t blog because we have too much of an influence over others. I even had to blog about “what is a blog” on http://www.mypurplemartinblog.com just to try and shed light on it for her. When I recovered from shock, I tried to explain that bloggers, such as myself, blog to blog. As an artist creates art to create.
There is no convincing some though.
Why do I blog? Because I can!!
Big shout out to the dial-up BBS!!! I even ran my own for a while.
I blog because I find I enjoy the creative outlet and the way it makes me think about different aspects of birding and nature study in general. When I force myself to consider how best to explain a concept or an experience to other people, I often discover some insight that I hadn’t considered before. It certainly makes me a more conscientious observer. That’s what keeps me writing even when traffic goes through its ebbs.
Plus I really enjoy the community of like-minded individuals.
I’ve always blogged for me: it’s catharsis and creativity wrapped up in one package. It’s a way to learn: for everything I photograph and post, I research it if I don’t already know about it, hence I wind up learning a great deal as a result of sharing what I see; similarly, I can’t know every point of view or every world aspect, so I learn from people who communicate with me about what I post. It’s a fantastic venue for meeting others with similar interests: it’s amazing the kind of friendships and camaraderie that develop when you find yourself part of a larger community.
But, for me at least, it still boils down to being an outlet for what I see and think and feel. Even if people stopped visiting today, I’d still do it so I could practice my writing and my photography, so I could learn about the world around me, so I could document my world and know that I was experiencing nature–and life–instead of just letting it all pass by.
Blogging definitely lends itself to both individual and communal pursuits. Over time, I find myself blogging more and more for my readers and community. As an extension of this, as I continue to refine my approach and method, blogging helps me find my place in the birding and nature community.
By the way, Wren, I love this question. Intention matters. Anyone interested in blogging or continuing to do so should consider his motives and desired outcomes. Those bloggers whose writing is aligned with their intentions seem to be more effective, entertaining, and probably satisfied.
I see blogging as a type of self-education that I hope others can learn from as well. It forces me to focus and do research on subjects that I might otherwise just pass off with an appreciative (or unappreciative!) comment. At its simplest, the blog is a personal journal(Duh!)with a public face. It is not just a reflection of my thoughts and interests today: it is an electronic, illustrated and search-able archive of what I have found important in the past - all with the benefit on input from the community. As such,(and for what it is worth) it may be the only legacy I have - whatever that means in the long term in this digital age.
Blogging has continually revised my idea of why I’m doing it. Most of all it is an incredible stimulation for creativity, offering an added motivation for writing, story-telling, photography, sketching/painting and getting out there in nature to see and experience the things worth sharing.
The added plus is the community we share while blogging, a world of like-minded people with which we can share our scrapbooks anytime, day or night.
Susan, I share your confusion.
Patrick, I hope we get a chance to compare notes sometime!
As Mike says, it’s helpful to why you’re doing something, and I find all the whys fascinating. Bloggers blog to play with technology, for an outlet for their creativity, to change the world or some part thereof, to build community, to share knowledge, to learn themselves …. perhaps it’s akin to “100 bloggers, 1,000 reasons.”
Let’s keep this conversation going: why do you blog?
I always had a habit of keeping a record of sightings and all the activities I did on treks and nature trails. This grew much more in later years. However, I used to keep all of those notes/ sightings etc. with myself. And then I found Blogging to be a free, easy way to share my sightings with others. And thus start networking and sharing my love of nature with others. This is my tiny effort to power my career as an environmentalist. This is an interesting question, Wren!
Cheers,
Ani
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[...] the Nature Blog Network asked the question, Why do you blog? My immediate response was: I see blogging as a type of self-education that I hope others can learn [...]