Shannon had a post detailing why she still reviews books. It made me think about all the reasons why I’m still blogging after all these years.
I started this blog in 2005 after blogging elsewhere for a year. So why am I still writing, all these years later?
It helps to download the thoughts out of my brain
I started the blog because my husband at the time liked to hear himself talk. He didn’t care to hear me talk. If I wanted to air my thoughts I needed a different outlet. It turns out that I don’t like talking anyway so this works just fine for me.
If I read a book and have thoughts about it, I can review it and get all those rampaging thoughts out of my head so I can move on.
It has helped me recreate events from my life
There have been a few times when I couldn’t remember what year something happened or in what order some events happened. A quick blog search set me right. How do people who don’t blog know what happened in their lives?
Social media is ok but it is so ephemeral. Â You can’t really search it to find old things. Â It could all disappear if it gets bought out. Â
It helps me find my people
I know most people in the world don’t care at all about whatever book I read last, let alone want to read all my thoughts on it. Here people actually at least want to briefly skim it.
Why are you still writing and/or reading blogs, despite all the articles declaring them dead every year?
[…] Heather @ Based on a True Story talks about why she’s still here, too […]
Daaang 2005!? That is next level impressive! I think I had a LiveJournal or something back then bwhaha. I do know what you mean about liking to relive events! That is one of my favorite things to do too. I think there is catharsis in writing stuff out too, I fully agree. (Also, super glad that husband turned out to be “at the time” bwhaha, good for you!)
What a wonderful post. I enjoyed your thoughts on Why Your Still Here. I wonder from time to time why I keep blogging and it comes down to the community. I don’t like to talk either. I’m a listener, but I like putting my thoughts down on what I like or don’t wither someone reads it or not.
Exactly! Whenever I see new bloggers who are more about growing a following than writing for themselves I know they aren’t going to be around for long.
The community keeps me here. I’ve met so many interesting people! Blogging also helps me remember what I read. If I didn’t write little reviews, I’d probably forget everything as soon as I put the book down.
It’s the community for me. I have booky friends but not nonfiction ones so much, and I loved especially in lockdown being able to talk to people all over the place.
Also, as I am self-employed and work at home, it gives me my only platform to share about the social justice stuff that is really important to me.
I never know people in real life who have read the same books as I have to discuss them either.
I’m very fortunate to be friends with Heaven-Ali and we have a big overlap in our fiction reading and swap books, and Kaggsysbookishramblings who I don’t see so often.
I just started blogging but I ten years ago I shut down a blog I had been writing for about seven years. Truly, one of the reasons I came back after all this time off is I miss the community and I love playing around with code and figuring out all the blogging stuff. I opted for books this time because it doesn’t require me to share as much personal info and I was tired of realizing ten pages in that I already read a book. Now I can just put everything together in one neat little package.
I once I read a whole book, didn’t enjoy it, went to review it, and realized that I had already read and reviewed it. I had absolutely no memory of it. The first line of my review called it “forgettable”. Got that one right!
If I don’t write down my book thoughts, they will disappear, and I really like to be able to go back and see what I thought about books I read in the past. I like that there are still other booky dinosaur folks hanging on, because those are my people. I can’t do BookTok or videos or Instagram, it’s not my format; I like this format! I do also use it to journal about travel. I’ve been very bad at blogging this year, but I also don’t want to let go of it.
Watching videos just takes too long. I like to read about reading!
Exactly! Videos take forever.