8 thoughts on 8 years of blogging

1. There’s pro blogging. Then there’s typing stuff the voices in your head comes up with and putting it on the web. This blog is in the second category. Of course there’s a middle ground between the two. It’s harder to navigate. Resulting in middling half baked words. Unless you are incredibly disciplined in using your intuition with sharp search engine and human optimised writing. At which point you are already a pro blogger.
2. This blog is an act of self preservation. The voices in my head come up with random sentences/phrases that sprout into stories. Which I type up and flush into the web. This stops the words from spiralling the mind into though paralysis (may be it already has). Thankfully I find a refuge from them at work or when driving or by being vigilantly mindful. Yet I can’t hide in the office 24/7. Eternal mental vigilance is draining. The voices are relentless. So we have a truce and the arrangement has worked all these years.
3. Trolls are a form of spam. Avoid feeding them with responses, attention and precious time. Obvious but worth saying.
4. I’m still shocked that there are people who read let alone enjoy what I post here. I never expected an audience. Professionals write for an audience. I write because I have to. Yet I feel very humbled to know that there are people who enjoy my writing who are willing to spend the time typing up a comment.
5. I have come to enjoy reading my own writing. Took about 7 years to happen. It is one of the most positive experience of my life. Which now forces me put more care and time I don’t have into my writing.
6. Blogging is a distinctive form of writing. That’s a once sentence summery of my eight years of doing it. How and why will take up a book I won’t be writing. Suffice to say that short sentences are better. At least for me.
7. I am grateful for the words and comments of a lot of other bloggers. Their writing and comments have taught me a lot about this form of writing. I’ve mentioned this gang before but worth stating again:
   • Chavie for his heaps of interesting posts, supportive comments, and vexillological talents
   • kirigalpoththa and Magerata
   • Chamira, and Half Doc both of whose blogs are sadly no more
   • Jack Point whose blog continues to keep me terrified after these years (I have finally explained why)
   • The late Kalusudda for his unique positive energy
   • Maf who inspired me to the possibilities of writing with a single masterpiece of satire. He is according to my stats, one of the top commenters on my blog as well.
   • Published authors like David Blacker for their occasional unpretentious grunts of approval. These made me consider the crazy idea that some of my writing might not be awful as I thought
   • His Rhythmic excellency who helped the evolution of this blog and my writing. I don’t know where to begin describing how
   • kottu.org for delivering a river of diverse voices that I would have never found

   To this list I’ll add Yudhanjaya Wijeratne’s Icarus Wept. I’m sure there are more I’m not conscious of. Outside of the blog, conversations on Twitter have of late been a source of ideas. For that the list of Tweeple to thank will be too long to type.

8. Writing one sentence a day is better than not writing. Pecking out a post on a mobile this way has a odd satisfaction. Yet it requires a horrifying amount of cleaning up. Sometimes editing the sentences in the head will prepare you to bang them out when a small time window opens. Getting the phone to read out the words is the best form of proof reading ever.

So a seemingly random list. Perhaps I could spend a few days “tightening” out the order. Not that it might do much good. Best keep it short and raw up to a point. Instead here’s the usual link to my first ever blog post.

Thank you for reading.