How is your blogging going? I only ask because mine is decidedly creaky and I know quite a few of my ‘go-to’ bloggers have either stopped or are taking a sabbatical.
A few weeks ago I decided that as we weren’t planning to go away this summer, I’d get back into what used to pass as a habit – well you can see for yourself how successful that turned out to be…
I’ve been giving the whole blogging thing a lot of thought, particularly in view of the impact of Twitter, Instagram and the like. Personally I’ll admit to loving Instagram. I use it almost as a cross between a nature diary and a journal of my work-in-progress with the odd historical jaunt here and there. It’s so easy to use, I generally post pictures from my morning walks while I’m eating my breakfast. And I rather enjoy a quick scroll through my feed to catch up with what’s happening amongst my IG friends. It feels like a very friendly and supportive community.
I’m also a Twitter fan, although I tend to use it as much as a tailor-made news feed as a way to keep in touch with a variety of lovely friends I’ve made there.
So where does that leave blogging? It seems to me that in many ways, Twitter and Instagram have taken over the role of the ‘what I’ve been up to’ post. It’s much easier to Tweet or post a quick photo of the relatively mundane, than to sit down and blog about it days later.
But we bloggers are a thoughtful bunch, and not everything that needs to be expressed comes instantly in 140 characters. I know that many of us write as much for ourselves as for readers, and we feel compelled to do that for a whole raft of reasons.
Having thought about it now over several months, it seems to me that there is still a very real role for blogging as a means for us to find and use our voices, whether it’s exploring aspects of our inner landscape, debating with ourselves as much as with others, or raising issues important to us and hoping to reach a wider audience.
Social media is a great way of showing the ‘now’, but it’s not so good at explaining feelings, and that depth of exploration is much better suited to blogging.
I miss the voices of those now quiet bloggers whose insights, questions and experiences gave me pause for thought and sometimes even caused me to act.
Maybe we don’t need to recount at length the tiny minutiae of our daily grind – or maybe we do – but I believe we do need to tell our stories, talk about the things that are important to us and let our voices be heard.
I intend to try harder to get back into the habit and I hope if you’ve been resting, you might join me too.
Dreaming In Stitches 