Stefanie has very kindly tagged me for the "Why I Blog Meme", which has been popping up a lot lately. I suspect my reasons will not be terribly different than what you have already read before, but as I am feeling uninspired otherwise (and life is rather boring in my part of the world) the timing for this meme is perfect.
First a little background on how this blog even came about...the first year I did this (I started in January of 2005), my Typepad subscription was a Christmas gift from my sister. I was aware of blogs, but I really never bothered to read them. When I got an email from Typepad I thought it was spam and promptly deleted it (wasn't I terribly savvy?). After my sister asked about it I had to admit what I did and she had to ask them to resend the log-in information. Had I known better I would have probably chosen a different blog name, and I definitely would have made my URL a little more anonymous, but oh well. Live and learn. I had no idea what to talk about, so it was mostly a bit of this and that (not just books) and the posts were about one small paragraph long. If you go back in my archives you can see that no one ever read me, no one ever left comments and things were a bit on the sad side here. At some point in the year I discovered book blogs. I think the first ones I read were So Many Books, Pages Turned, Book World and Bookgirl's Nightstand. As I had an affinity for reading and books and saw others talking about books almost exclusively, my blog evolved to how it is now. And of course my blogroll has pretty much exploded and I often add new book blogs to my blogroll.
So why I blog:
- When I discovered book bloggers, there was this wonderful realization that others read as much as I did and now I had somewhere to to share my love of books. I found my little niche in the blogosphere and decided I liked this blogging thing.
- This should probably the number one reason for me--the conversation. I really don't have many people here to talk about books with--at least not how I do here. There seem to be an endless number of readers out there that I can and do chat with about books and authors.
- This is a sort of online personal journal about the books I read. I can make it as detailed or simple as I like. I keep track of what I have read, what I thought about it, what I want to read, what I want to buy or have bought. You get the idea.
- Blogging has widened my reading horizons greatly! I read more and I read better now than I ever did. I have been exposed to books I think I might never have even heard of before. I think about books differently now.
- I'm addicted and can't stop now. I really look forward to posting and I look forward to reading comments and visiting other blogs and seeing what is new. And it isn't just about books really anymore. Although I have never met any other bloggers and I can't say I really "know" anyone whose blogs I read or who might happen by and read my posts, but I feel like I sort of know people--at least their online personas. I think I would miss not hearing from people if I didn't blog.
I think a lot of people have answered this meme, but I will tag a few people anyway: Matt, Eva, Cipriano, Equiano and Tara. And of course if you haven't yet been tagged but want to play along, please feel free to meme-away!