Why I blog

I have always enjoyed writing and that's why I decided to start a blog.  I haven't written much since college and I thought this would allow me to sharpen my skills again.  It was very easy to start the blog.  I had expected to have to learn about the complex process of creating a website, but it took me about two minutes using Google's blogspot.  I'm sure there are many other options available, each with their own advantages and disadvantages, but I am not able to comment on that.

I eagerly began writing again, enjoying the feeling when a good sentence was created.  I hope to write essays about things I know about that I think would interest the public.  My ultimate goal is to refine my writing to the point that I can begin submitting pieces to magazines and perhaps write a novel.

I searched for websites about how to make a blog successful.  Some things were obvious:  write regularly, choose topics that are of interest, but others were less expected.  There is a whole language that was new to me.  There are various rating scales for blogs based upon how many visits they get and how many people click through to links on the blog site.  Once again it boils down to money.  Apparently there's gold in them thar hills and people are after it.  A successful blog can generate money.  How much, I don't know.

Every forum I found about blogging was essentially about how to make money with one's blog.  This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it would be like searching how to catch fish only to find websites about how to win fishing tournaments.  I was more interested in taking my kids fishing, if you get the analogy.

Some blog forums allow you to post your blog's website on your forum messages, but only after you've achieved a certain status on the forum.  This usually means that you have posted a certain number of messages on the forum.  The result is numerous mindless posts that are intended simply to increase one's message count, such as "Nice post, bro", or "I totally agree, dude".

One forum had a post with a list of hints at how to make your blog successful.  Since I had been reading a lot about this very subject, I recognized the article as an almost exact duplicate of an article I had read on another site.  A couple of people mentioned this fact but their comments were ignored.  I posted a comment, my first on this website, stating that the article was plagiarism and the person who posted it should be removed from the forum.  As yet I have received no replies.  I did get my first post though.  Only 59 to go before I can put my blog's website on my postings.

Meanwhile I am enjoying writing again.  I have to admit that I periodically search for my blog on google, hoping that one day it will pop up in the results, or that I will receive comments from strangers on my blog's posts.  Even comments from friends would be nice.  I can't say that it wouldn't be nice to make money from my blog either, but that is not what it is all about, at least for me.