Start a Blog. Here's Why

One example: David, who used to have a blog called The Commonzense of Saint James, wrote a book about his spiritual journey, all the while enjoying the following and support of a great number of people. I think he benefited greatly from the suggestions and encouragement. Then when he finished the book, he decided to let go of the blog. Other writers, however, stick it out for years and years, as they develop a writing career. Which leads me to #2.

I often check the Books topic in Wordpress, to see what people are reading and why. Of course, I could go on Amazon, or Goodreads, or type review in Google, but for that I'd need to know about the books, right? Sure, I get some newsletters about that (which also include reviews), and there are lists of bestsellers on Amazon, and writers you love who mention other writers – you always learn about books. But if you follow the more traditional paths and don't go to mortar-and-brick bookstores often to leaf through books, chances are you'll be reading only books in the genres and of the types you already favor.

While most people share some of their poetry, you'll find that a good number share some wonderful classics. So you'll be rereading William Wordsworth (I recently enjoyed his "Daffodils" poem again: "And then my heart with pleasure fills, / And dances with the daffodils."), Sylvia Plath, and so on.

If you look under the Music topic, you'll find a lot of interesting videos you may not discover otherwise. Often these posts include just the video. There are also longer posts which end with a video, or which include several videos. Or you may be reading about a book and the playlist the author associated to that book, and discover music that way. I discovered Antony and the Johnsons that way, while reading an interview with Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, who wrote Damn Love, a book I have actually ordered and am reading now.

Some blogs on Wordpress are truly wonderful. One of them is Strange Flowers, written by James Conway, a writer and translator living in Berlin. Another blog with great posts on art is The Bleeding Tomato, kept by Dutch visual artist Roberto Voorbij, who also promotes his designs there. Which brings me to the next wonderful thing about blogs.

I started my blog with the intent of devoting a large portion of it to promoting my Zazzle products, many of which involve some sort of quotes I put together. So I named my blog funlifequotes. Of course, I soon discovered that this commercial bent, even if cloaked under some sort of commentary sometimes, was rather bitter to the taste (much as I like my designs). So I also started writing about random things: books, music.

I also use my blog to promote Wizzley articles after I write them. A photo, a few sentences, and a link to the article is all it takes. Some of the bloggers do land on Wizzley to read the article.

I also figured that since I named my blog funlifequotes, I should stay true to that and post my blogs under some quote titles ever so often. It's fun and these quotes do attract the attention of other bloggers.

I also like to post 2-minute posts involving a YouTube video. You just write a title and post a link, and the YouTube video appears in the Reader. If I have written an article about the band, I also link to that. (I find myself listening to Depeche Mode a lot more after their concert in Bucharest, so I've posted their songs a few times lately.)

These are just some of the things about my blogging experience that keep me hooked. Hope I have intrigued you enough to consider starting your own blog. Of course, your interests will be different and you will find a whole lot of other incentives to continue blogging of you do give it a chance. But do sign up and put up a blog. It's really easy.

I don't log in / post every day, and apart from that blogging takes me very little time per session. Some people write long posts, but I don't. I tend to do posts that I can squeeze between various tasks when I need to unplug a little from a task that takes a lot of time.

I guess that after all this talking about my blogging experience, I should give you a link to get an idea what my blog looks like (nothing fancy). Here it is: funlifequotes.wordpress.com.