Why I write

My friend Janet asks a good question: how does it feel to write this blog and develop content, and for whom am I writing? She posits the question I've been thinking about since I started.

It began very simply: I'd written an article and wanted to see if I could get broader distribution if I posted it, so that it would show up when people searched for me on Google. But it quickly changed from a distribution channel to a communication one.

At first it seemed like I was keeping a journal, but I made myself remember that while a journal is private, a blog is anything but. And here's where vanity comes in. I'm too vain to be satisfied with writing in private. I crave feedback and reactions to both the writing and the stories.

And I love stories. I love telling them and hearing them. And this is a perfect medium for story-telling. I can write in a quick episodic style or I can tell a long, complex story -- blogs are porous and endlessly forgiving. I now experience the world through the blog filter. As things happen (or don't), as ideas emerge (or don't) I think of them in terms of blog posts.

Of course there are more prosaic reasons to do this. It's an easy way to keep people up to date on what we're doing, which is particularly useful during a busy, active period like our cycling trip. Some of my friends have commented that it's great for knowing what's going on, because our phone calls are necessarily brief and we don't get together as much as we'd like.

Blog on.