BLOG ON BLOG

 

I started blogging in late 2017. Originally, I set up a series of Blogger sites but graduated to a WordPress address after completing a ‘How to’ adult education course in January 2018. Most of my stuff now is highlighted in WordPress but the Blogger sites are still employed as sorts of storage depots for blogs as I generate them. However, I now give the latter platforms little publicity.

My reasons for commencing blogging are varied. While I’m definitely not a writer, I do enjoy writing and the establishment of a blog provided one environment for this pastime. Blogging seems purpose-built for the mug lair who wants to jot down a few points and launch them into the cosmos.

An increasing dissatisfaction with social media platforms also influenced my decision. I had been a long term user of Facebook and my status updates were starting to lengthen to the point that some would require about five minutes of reading before a ‘like’ or comment could be attached. Clearly, the confines of Zuckerberg Central were firming as was a desire to distance myself from the ubiquitous ‘Can’t believe’, ‘Awww thanks’ and ‘I was just thinking about that/ you’ postings that infest one’s newsfeeds daily.

Likewise, being retired and currently inhabiting the departure lounge encouraged me to start blogging. I regularly have free time coming out of my arse so putting pen to paper does fill up a few vacant hours. The ‘I’ve never been busier’ dirge of many boomers doesn’t wash from my experience and the occasional construction of a hard-hitting exposition at least frees me up from staring at the nostrils of Facebook friends or salivating at some delicacy dished up at the all-you-can-eat bistro. N.B. Facebook’s images has been dealt with in a previous blog but spare me any further research….please. The blogs, so far, have proved to be a safe haven.

But it’s not an immediate clear passage with the blog barge. The initial challenge when you become a blogger lies in confronting the void. Unlike the social media where likes, comments, emojis and self-centred images simulate immediate reaction, the blogger has to learn to hold his or her breath often for days at a time. Lung capacity is enhanced but when the dashboard indicators eventually start ticking, the effects are far superior. I now place more importance on the traffic that crosses my blogs than anything related to whether or not punters like them. I just assume that they approve of them because they wouldn’t bother reading 1-2K words of text if they didn’t. And that assumption of acceptance drives you to start spitting more stuff out. Bugger ‘intoxicating,’ it’s blogging.

But perhaps the most obvious imperative when blogging is the need to piece together and articulate an opinion. While the vox pop suggests that opinions are everywhere, the reality is that structured points of view are becoming rare in the social media worlds of narcissistic images, clichéd text and automatic reflex response.

The blogger must take a chance when posting because his or her arse is fully exposed and that can be unsettling. Many people can’t do it, most people won’t do it and even a few will ridicule it. It’s no wonder that we have a problem with writing in our schools when hardly anyone writes themselves. And that goes for pundits and would-be editors too.

I have a stable of topics that always interest me and serve as a background to much of what I blog. Politics, music, golf, current affairs, education, language and old farts’ issues regularly make the run-on squad but I’ll write about anything that requires a ratbag analysis. Significantly, I’ve started to search out a lot more non-fiction resources from the internet, municipal libraries, trade union libraries and even book stores to support the onslaught and I’m beginning to be able to pronounce some big words. What such words mean is still a mystery.

My blogs enjoy a ‘boutique’ following at best but traffic has increased three-fold this year and that’s alongside a much reduced output from yours truly. I can’t fully account for the surge but I hope that it continues. Australians make up the bulk of the ‘visits’ followed by the U.S. and then the United Kingdom, Sweden and Canada share the bronze medal. In total, punters from 72 countries have sought refuge in the blogs during 2019.

For the record, my least popular title is My city of Sydney and the top of the pops is Ten essential Oz albums. I haven’t yet worked out what will make a particular blog a crowd-pleaser or a stinker. The ones that I put a lot of effort into often don’t raise even a fart.

Franz Kafka asserted that Writing is utter solitude, the descent into the cold abyss of oneself. I wonder if Franz had a camera on hand because he would have been a real hit on facie if he did. And besides, he was a novelist. Enough said.