I recently became aware, via Matthias Melcher’s blog and Stephen Downes’ OL Weekly that a small group of people are blogging about blogging. This attracted my attention because although I have been blogging since 2006, I have written very few posts in the last couple of years – only two in 2024 – whereas I consistently posted almost every month before 2023.

I know exactly why I have not been blogging recently – life! Sometimes events come along that are so devastating that even things far more important than blogging pale into insignificance. But I have always enjoyed blogging and as life is slowly, slowly, beginning to settle again, albeit into a completely different format, I can see that next year, if not this, and if nothing else comes along to knock me sideways, I may want to start up again.

Matthias’ post is titled Blogging Questions Challenge. I’m not quite sure where these questions originated. I expect I could find out if I did a search, but I won’t.  These are the questions.

1. Why did you start blogging in the first place?
2. What platform are you using to manage your blog and why did you choose it?
3. Have you blogged on other platforms before?
4. How do you write your posts? For example, in a local editing tool, or in a panel/dashboard that’s part of your blog?
5. When do you feel most inspired to write?
6. Do you publish immediately after writing, or do you let it simmer a bit as a draft?
7. What’s your favourite post on your blog?
8. Any future plans for your blog? Maybe a redesign, a move to another platform, or adding a new feature?
9. Who will participate next?

It has been interesting in attempting to answer these questions to reflect on my blogging journey.

Why did you start blogging in the first place?

 I started in 2006. My husband was taking a six-month sabbatical from his position as a university professor and we decided to go and live in Brazil, where we had lived for 7 years in our younger days. I set up a blog – Retorno a Florianopolis on the Blogger platform, which I realised too late should read Retorno para Florianopolis to be correct!

This blog was intended as a diary to share with family and friends.  Ultimately, I converted this blog into a book for my family, using Lulu Publishing.

In April 2008, I set up another blog for some work I was doing with Oxford Brookes University on reflective learning.

Both these Blogger blogs were one offs and were project driven.

Later in 2008 I started a WordPress blog which has been my blog ever since. I made my first WordPress post on September 9^th 2008 when I signed up for Stephen Downes’ and George Siemens’ Connectivism and Connective Knowledge online course, which turned out to be the first ever massive open online course (MOOC) with over 2000 participants. Blogging was a requirement/recommendation of that course. My first post got no views, no comments and no likes 🙂 and so it continued with all my posts for quite a while until Stephen Downes linked to a post I made about my mother having never used a computer but nevertheless being extremely well connected. I remember being horrified that my post had come to Stephen’s attention, and, by his reposting, to others’ attention. I had been happily writing away just for me in my own bubble and suddenly people I didn’t know were reading my posts. You can see from this, that at the time I didn’t have a clue about the purpose of publishing blog posts.

The reason I joined CCK08 in the first place was because I was increasingly teaching online, and I wanted to learn more about how we could support our students in creating an online learning community. Ultimately, we ran one of the first online/distance learning teacher training programmes in the UK with 500+ students.

What platform are you using to manage your blog and why did you choose it?

Since experimenting with Blogger, I have stuck with WordPress. I needed help to set it up, which was generously provided by the Learning Technologist in my institution, Nigel Robertson. Nigel emigrated to New Zealand where he has lived happily ever after! I am now so familiar with WordPress that I have no desire to move to another platform, although I am aware that sometime in the future it could all be swept away from me by forces beyond my control, as has happened with Twitter, which was a wonderful tool for connectivity in the early days. But as I will enter my ninth decade next year, my blog is now no more than an enjoyable recreational tool, that takes its place alongside other recreational activities. It is no longer work nor reputation driven.

Have you blogged on other platforms before?

Yes, Blogger, as mentioned above, which felt and looks very different.

How do you write your posts?

I never write straight into the site, but always in Word first.  I am cautious and careful. I don’t take risks or gamble! I know to my cost, that even when being careful, words and intentions can be so easily misinterpreted and being attacked online is a very unpleasant experience.

I rarely post quickly. I usually write, edit and rewrite a number of times in Word before posting. I usually try to include a related image, which might be my own photo or one I have searched for and found on the web. Having worked in education I am very aware of plagiarism and always try to reference my sources. I have found that AI is now making this more difficult. I also try to use paragraphs, headings and white space appropriately, although WordPress now has an AI feedback tool that reminds me about this when I make a post.

In terms of choosing what to write about, it isn’t normally a choice. Unless I am writing as part of an online course, I don’t feel I have to write something and therefore I am not looking for something to write about. Usually something will crop up, often unexpected, that I find I want to write about. What I have realised in recent years is that I need reflective space, away from the computer, to turn thoughts over in my mind and allow ideas to formulate. I then select from those thoughts and ideas. Not everything spills out onto the page. Hannah Arendt reminds us that the language we use reveals who we are. This idea makes me pay attention to the words I use and try not to use them lightly.

When do you feel most inspired to write?

When I started blogging, the focus was always on journal/diary writing or a response to what I was learning on a course. For many years my posts were mostly education related, since I worked in education. I retired eight years ago. Since then, most of my posts have been related to philosophical texts and ideas. It took some courage to do this. I have no background in philosophy, and I fully expected my readers to drop away, but the opposite has happened. I have far more readers now than eight years ago, although the number has been dropping recently, no doubt because I haven’t been posting.

I’m not sure that I ever feel ‘inspired’ to write. I think motivated would be a better word and this can come from literally any source or context. This post was motivated by Matthias Melcher’s post and reading related posts. I do think, though, that blogging consistently, as opposed to sporadically, generates ideas for writing, i.e. the more you write, the more you find to write about. I remember Stephen Downes once saying that if you can’t find anything to write about, you must be a boring person, or words to that effect. I don’t think this is as disparaging as it sounds. I think he was saying that you can write about anything that interests you. For me it’s more a question of confidence that what you would like to or could write about would stand up to scrutiny in the open.

Do you publish immediately after writing, or do you let it simmer a bit as a draft?

My motto is ‘Act in haste, repent at leisure’. I usually sit on a post, at least overnight, before publishing. I always find errors in it the next day, no matter how much editing I have done beforehand. Even after publishing there are errors that need editing and those are just the ones I notice.

What’s your favourite post on your blog?

This is not something I have ever thought about and I don’t think it’s possible to answer. It’s a bit like asking which of your children is your favourite. And I don’t remember most of what I have written in the past. Sometimes I look back and am surprised by what I have written.

It isn’t even the case that a post that gets a lot of views will be a favourite. In 2012 I went with my husband to a conference in Chennai at which he was speaking. I attended a talk about The Role of the Service Sector in the Indian Economy. I took notes and wrote a post about it. For quite a few years this was the post that always got the most views, even though it doesn’t relate to anything else I write about, and I know virtually nothing about economics. To date this post has received just short of 83000 views. I was bemused by this for a long time but speculated that it was probably due to students using it for an assignment.

I regret not having written more about travelling with a wheelchair user, which I did for many years, but at the time disability didn’t feature highly in our thinking. We were travellers meeting a unique set of travelling challenges, just as other travellers do. We didn’t think there was anything special about this. Only in the last few years have I thought that writing about it might be useful to others, so I only have four posts about this.

Any future plans for your blog?

I have been thinking for quite a while that I would like to change the look of my blog. I have never particularly liked the look of the current one, but I don’t have the technical skills to create my own look. I use a given free template and therefore must choose from what is offered.

I have recently wondered whether I should start a completely new blog, but I think history informs both the present and the future, and therefore for continuity’s sake, for the sake of my own continuing learning, and for the sake of my readers, I think I should stick with this blog. But maybe a new look would more accurately reflect the new or changing me, a change that has been forced on me by recent circumstances.

And sometimes I question whether I should be a bit more courageous like Ed Pirie on A Vermonter Writes – A Pathfinder . I tend to keep my head below the parapet, if I can, so I admire the openness with which he writes.

I have also wondered whether I should move to Substack. Is that equivalent to a blog? I don’t know enough about it, but I do follow some great writers on Substack, my current favourites being Kenny Primrose – Positively Maladjusted, Samantha Rose Hill – Reflections and Hanif Kureishi – The Kureishi Chronicles .

I recently came across this wonderful quote from Emily Dickinson (my late husband’s favourite poet).

When I am a bit nearer finding myself, I will change the look of this blog. Maybe next year sometime! Maybe never!

Who will participate next?

If I have understood correctly, this question was in the original list so that the questions would be passed on to named other people in a sort of chain letter. But that’s not really me. If people read this post and it prompts them to write, that’s great, but Matthias didn’t push his post on me, and I won’t push my post on others.

I was interested in looking back through this blog, which was prompted by these questions, to realise that I have written a few posts in the past about blogging, but I haven’t re-read them. Life is too short to keep looking back.

Source of Images:

Blogging: https://janetmachuka.com/9-ways-how-blogging-can-change-your-life-for-the-better/

Emily Dickinson Quote: from Samantha Rose Hill’s Substack. Reflections.