Why I blog

At some point many moons ago now, Bardiac tagged me for a meme of giving five reasons why I blog. I think I've said this all before somewhere, but I can say it again, especially since I don't want to start working yet! So:

1. I blog to take part in a conversation. I started because I started reading other bloggers (specifically Bitch Ph.D., Dr. Crazy [at her original digs], and profgrrrrl), and I wanted to talk to them, to comment on their posts. After a couple of comments it felt weird commenting without having a space of my own to refer them to, so I set up the blog. Eh voila! (I should add that I don't think there is ANY problem with regular commenters not having blogs, but it felt weird to me at the time, especially since I'm pretty wordy, so I could hijack a comment box pretty handily.)
       
2. That conversation is a conversation it's not easy to find taking place in the "real" world. The reason I wanted to start talking to Bitch Ph.D., Dr. Crazy, and profgrrrrl was that they were saying the things (about academia) that I felt but never heard anyone say. Like feeling guilty that I never seemed to be working as hard as my colleagues, but thinking that I was getting done what I needed to so should I be working that hard or was it all a pose anyway? Things like that. Sure, everyone's blogs have evolved since then, so they're not the same writers and I'm not the same reader, but when I started reading them, I felt relief that someone was actually being honest about this profession. So blogging created a space where a certain kind of conversation could take place.
      
3. I blog to keep myself accountable to myself. This isn't just about the nitty gritty of what I am/am not accomplishing, work-wise or life-wise, though I do those things, too. But when I write about what's going on in my life to an audience, however imagined some of you may be, I have to be honest with myself about what I'm thinking and doing, and that's important to me. (I should add that not all that honesty ends up on the actual blog, but the process clarifies things for me.)
       
4. I blog to work through the things in my head. Ah, yes, the personal therapy motive! (Yes, this is a little like number 3.) I have always been someone who wrote to figure out what I was thinking. I've kept a journal since I was seven. (I have a whole box of finished journals that get schlepped with me on every move, even though I can't quite bring myself to go back and read any of them.) When I used to write fiction, I wrote to find out what happened next - I honestly didn't know, and when I figured it out, I lost interest in the story and moved on to something else. (Now you know why I no longer write fiction.) In my research, I do the same thing - I write to figure out what I actually know about a subject. My head is a rather crowded and messy place and I can never find the room to lay out ideas nicely and neatly and put them into some kind of shape; I have to do that on paper. Or, in this case, on the computer screen.
       
5. I blog to write. Because I think that in whatever fashion, I am a writer. Of something. However painful writing might be sometimes, when I don't write, I miss it. And blogging keeps me writing. And it's not painful.

Comments

[Inkslinger]

A great post! I especially liked your #s 2 and 3. I wish I had such good reasons behind my blogbirth.

[timna]

I can't believe I lurked for years before blogging. I commented back in the day of Invisible Adjunct...
I agree with many of your reasons for initially connecting with the academic bloggers, adding the job search and adjuncting aspect, too.