Why do we blog?

Phil: According to the WordPress website, this the the 300th post on the nolanparker blog. Since I can’t think of anything better to write about, this seems an apposite time for a bit of navel-gazing. Why do we blog? Why does anyone blog? Why should you blog?

Well, we could say it’s all about publicity. We have 137 followers – a reasonable number who read everything we write. Add to this the numbers who spot us every time we throw another post out into the world. I’m pretty sure those numbers are on the low side. Being a nerdy web guy, I cunningly run an independent visitor counter on the site and it shows rather more visits than the ‘official’ one. If further proof was required, we’ve had a few days when two people have ‘liked’ a post, yet the counter claims no-one has visited. Hmmm.

We could say it helps us hone our writing skills. All those words. All that practise. Something good must come of it.

We could be honest and say that every time someone hits the ‘Like’ button, our egos get a boost. There is skipping and around and celebratory cake.

Truth is, the main thing the blog does, is keep us writing.

Twice a week, we are determined to add some nolanparker words to the repository of human knowledge and funny cat pictures that is the World Wide Web. If we didn’t do it, massive guilt would descend. The blog gives us a focus when writing the novel is going slowly. Sometimes we look for things to do that will provide meat for the blog meal.

Basically, it keeps us going. We can’t give up. Where non-blogging writers can stuff the book in a drawer and forget about it for a while, we don’t have that option. well, if we did, you lot would wonder where we’d got to.

Which makes it all worthwhile.

So, today’s moral is, if you want to get the book finished, tell everyone about it and then you can’t give up.