Was it as good for you as it was for me?
Last year, on February 5th, I created this blog and posted my very first entry. I had looked into Blogger a year before, in 2001, but I didn’t quite get it and put it in my « read more about this » list. It wasn’t until a full year had passed that I was finally able to explore the subject some more. I was doing research for an article about blogging, and I thought that the best way to understand this phenomenon was to create a blog, in order to familiarize myself with the tools available. I didn’t know where I was going with this and had no idea if I would keep it up or not. The idea of maintaining such a personal space on the Web made me a bit nervous, and I was rather naive about the whole scene, technically and socially, even though I was aware (as an ex San Franciscan who worked in high tech) that this was a very hip thing to do, if you did it right (and if you had started publishing your blog in 1999…).
Here I am, a year and many many posts later. Has my life changed since this self-publishing habit? Not fundamentally, but my daily routine has. My Web reading now comprises 75% blogs vs other sites, such as Wired News, Salon, The New York Times, etc. I am familiar with the passions, interests and other follies of a fascinating bunch of men and women from different countries around the world. With their help, I find out about great Web sites, news stories and events I might not have been exposed to otherwise. Their creativity is very contagious. Plus, in an hour or so, I will head out to go to the YULblog get-together in Montr�al and I will meet people who would have not crossed my path otherwise. Hell, I even met my one-of-a-kind beau through one of these meetings, so yes, there have been a few life changes because of blogging!
Even though I already wrote magazine articles for a living (alongside television directing and a few other things), writing on this blog – with its small audience which has been consistently increasing in the last year – has given me a much needed discipline and has helped me warm up those typing muscles. I do not believe it is a total coincidence that I have finally started to work on a novel after promising myself that I would do so for years and years. I am starting to see more clearly want I want to do and where I’m not willing to go, and this means that as a freelancer, I’m getting better at saying no to jobs I don’t truly care for. It’s a newly found focus which I appreciate very much.
In other words, blogging has been very good for me.
Alors joyeux anniversaire, ni vu ni connu !
