Poll: Why Do You Blog?

[mabfan]

[To understand the reasons behind this poll, please see my previous post, Survey of the Blogosphere.]

[Poll #774048]

Copyright © Michael Burstein

Comments

[cheshyre]

I blog on riba_rambles but use my LJ primarily to read other LJs.

I chose "No" on whether I consider myself a writer.
I write, but purely amateur, no interest in going pro.

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

I know of a few people who blog elsewhere but use an LJ to reply to other LJs. I got a Blogger account for the same reason, in reverse.

[saxikath]

Editor yes, writer no. Though I keep thinking I should venture into that arena.

[popfiend.livejournal.com]

I bloggeth about pop culture and personal philosophy and the silly.

[kuroshii.livejournal.com]

i first got onto LJ to keep in touch with people i'm friends with in real life that have scattered across the country and beyond. you come under that heading. ;) then i started meeting people through other people. most of my blog is friendslocked to some degree, and i keep it nonsearchable.

should i ever want to use a blog to promote my self or my writing, i'll make a new one that uses my real name in some way.

[csbermack.livejournal.com]

I don't really consider myself a blogger. I don't update often, I don't have a theme or a message. People reading lj would not be caught up on my life. I treat it as sort of an extended IM client. I started it because I was having a fit of writing rants and anecdotes and emailing them to people.

I suppose if I had any published work, I would be promoting it here. :)

[sdelmonte]

At some level, I am still an aspiring writer. At some level, I am a frustrated critic.

I think if I were not these things, I would blog a lot less.

[rikchik.livejournal.com]

I use my journal to play with my constructed language (usually by reporting on my personal life), and also to promote random free-time projects I do. (I guess if "placing on a web page" = "publishing", I could have clicked "promoting my published work".)

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

There's my fan writing, there's my comic books, there's my cooking and other hobbies as well as just *stuff* that happens.

[mneme]

I use my blogs as:

Somewhere to talk about gaming.
Somewhere to post quick reviews (of movies, of food, of books)
Somewhere to post thougths I want to discuss/vent
Somewhere to post con reports
Somewhere to brag
Somewhere to post announcements.

I don't consider myself either an aspiring or working writer, despite having been published in one gaming book, despite having submitted two reviews to NYRSF (one paid for/printed, the other awaiting editing), despite having written (and posted, flocked, in my blog) a short story I've been persuaded to submit for publication. I'm a lifestyle writer -- I write as part of my variant on the human condition; if I end up writing something that's worth publishing, that's cool, but I don't have any ambition to do so or make money at doing so.

[rev69.livejournal.com]

i use my blog primarily to entertain and network with friends, prospective sig others and the like.

A lot of my content is misc views spanning all categories and a lot of questionnaires and memes.

[angwantibo.livejournal.com]

Blogging for me is to stay in touch with friends and also to have fun. Quizes and surveys are fun.

Funny headlines and happenstance is always good fodder.

[ellameena.livejournal.com]

I don't really consider my LJ a blog. I have tried "blogging" as in writing daily or weekly posts about a targeted topic, but my motivation for it is poor and I always end up confused about what I am doing. My LJ is purely a social outlet for me, as I spend a lot of time alone and my computer working. I chat with a lot of my RL friends on LJ, and some other friends and family members read it, so they can keep up with the very exciting goings on in my life. It's okay with me if fans read it to follow my illustrious career, but in that case I hope they have other writers that they're following because I don't have a lot going on in that department. :-)

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Like so many others, I signed up for LJ to read other people's blogs: specifically, a friend who was setting off on a round the world trip, but also some blogs that I was already reading.

I knew that I would be tempted to post occasionally, but was surprised at how addictive I found it, and how satisfying I would find writing it. I tell people I'm not a writer, because I have no aspirations to write fiction, or to publish books - but sometimes I think I am a writer, and my LJ is what I write.

The "Other" that I ticked in the list of topics written about: reading, rather than writing, and more generally than SF.

[burger-eater.livejournal.com]

I created my account to have a place to post stories about my kid. It's an online backup copy that my in-laws can read.

I also talk about the books I read there.

[lensman.livejournal.com]

I blog for the following reasons: To keep somewhat in touch with people I don't see regularly.
I primarily blog about: Random bits that catch my attention and that I think others should here about.

[bluepapercup]

Four things.

A) I hate the word "blog".

B) I do not "blog". I keep an online journal.

C) I don't read people's "blogs". I read livejournal, and Ben's sister's page on blogger, and that's it. I keep people on my friendslist only as long as I am interesting in hearing about their ideas and well-being. I read every entry on my friendslist, even if I don't comment. I do use my friendslist as a way to keep up with my far-away friends as well, and oddly, the medium makes it easy to see who I still care about despite the distance.

D) I write largely for myself. I find lj a useful medium for exploring my thoughts and giving them a little more air and pasture than they'd get in my paper journal. I still journal quite regularly on paper, there are a great many unformed thoughts that do not deserve a home on the internet. Some of my best words I've ever written are on lj, and for now, that's cool with me.

[xochitl42.livejournal.com]

I blog to keep in touch with friends. There's no real single subject I focus on, just things that interest me. Or those infectious memes.

I suppose I'd promote myself if I were getting things published right now, but I've let that slip for a while now. Getting published, that is.

[kuroshii.livejournal.com]

my reasons mirror yours exactly! only, i have no fans. ;)

[beowabbit]

I blog as a personal journal, to talk about topics that interest me, and to let my friends and family keep in touch with my life.

I primarily blog about my personal life, movies, politics, science, books (including nonfiction), and lots and lots of meandering, only sometimes triggered by the world around me.

(I also filled out the survey, but figured it would be misleading to list just the “Other” explanations here.)

[swashbucklr]

To keep in touch with everyone back home while I'm in the Peace Corps.

And to write about my Peace Corps experience.

[michelel72.livejournal.com]

I've always been under the impression that blogs and online journals are two different things. I keep an online journal, and I sometimes use it for what I understand to be "blogging" (basically, posting about and linking to one or more other webpages, to comment on their content or direct others to them), but that is not the primary intent or focus of my journal.

Then again, I find the word blog unlovely, which may color my perceptions. I may also be taking too literal an interpretation of the term's etymology.

[viewfromtheback.livejournal.com]

I use private posts in my online journal to refine things I'm working on, and the rest are just things from the back of my head, things I can't say directly to the people I'm 'speaking' to.

I consider myself an aspiring writer.

[lordavon.livejournal.com]

I blog to keep my life in order. I get so out of whack, writing it down helps. Writing it down where people can comment provides perspective, which I sorely lack.

[cellio]

In addition to the reasons I checked, I write here to stay in touch with friends. To this end, I consider threaded comments essential; they encourage interaction.

While I don't write to promote my published work (since, journal aside, I don't really have any), I do write the occasional piece with the eye toward getting broader readership for the egoboo. That doesn't so much affect whether or what to write as how to craft it. (And usually it either doesn't happen or happens silently, but c'est la vie.)

I am a professional writer (software), but I said no to the last question because I'm not writing for submission. I'm a corporate slave. I do occasionally entertain the notion of changing that, and I did self-publish one book on an obscure topic, but in the end, I decided that I'm probably not the kind of writer you meant.

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

I think your sample is a little slanted by virtue of your profession...

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

Um, yeah, that's exactly why I wanted to do this survey, as I said in my previous post:

My own F-list aggregator tends to give a skewed view of the blogosphere. I tend to read the blogs of the people who chose to read mine. Consequently, although I see the blogs of a self-selected group of friends -- that is, those friends who have chosen to blog -- I also see a lot of blogs of aspiring and working science fiction and fantasy writers. As a result, sometimes I go through the day thinking that everyone out there is or wants to be a writer...

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

I've never been fond of the word "blog," either, and in some ways, I think the word carries with it a certain level of expectations. I think (although I'm not sure) that most of the outside world thinks of a blog as something more professional, like the stuff one sees on a political blog, or posts made by people in the journalism profession. Whereas the rest of us are doing something more akin to journaling.

Unfortunately, the word "blog" has come to subsume everything in the um, blogosphere.

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

See what I said to bluepapercup above. "Blog" is an odd word, and I think its definition is still being hashed out.

[pnew8.livejournal.com]

And I've always thought of the word blog as the opposite. A blog being a venue for teens and such to post about how bored they are, whether they are in love and venting about what so and so said behind their back and how that gets their ruff up.

I find it snickery that the professional side of the blog entitlement has been so accepted by the public.

[malkaesther.livejournal.com]

I had a hard time with the published bit also. I was a technical writer for both software and training companies so my stuff has been "published" but it just did not feel right to include that.

[norda.livejournal.com]

Ah.... I thought I was the only one!

[norda.livejournal.com]

I was "given" my LiveJournal account in 2003 by a online friend, back in the days when one needed an invite code. Its original purpose was to give me an outlet to express myself after my accident, beyond my usual bulletin board haunts.

It's become something different in the ensuing years, but it is still mostly an expression of my personal life. That personal life includes many of the interests cited above, which are shared by other readers, and some interests in which no one seems interested except me.

[lisafeld.livejournal.com]

Waffled back and forth on the yes/no, but my 'other' was that most of the stuff I do on LJ is fanfic/fanart related: I post my fic and most of the journals I link to that don't belong to blood relatives are fan writers/artists/communities. Trying to get out of posting fic, which I why I'm avoiding my fic journal, but it's harder to leave the art alone. I love the pretties.

[framlingem.livejournal.com]

With regards to the aspiring writer thing, one of the reasons I started keeping a public journal on the internet rather than a private one is the advice someone gave me, which is to write every day, regardless of subject or form or anything, as a discipline exercise. Discipline is my main problem, and I found myself skipping days in my paper notebook - with the public one, I'll have an audience who will know that I've been slacking, and that's a motivating factor.

[queue.livejournal.com]

I think a lot of us editors are like that.

[kuroshii.livejournal.com]

same here! i got a blogger account when my "friends who keep blogs on blogspot" reached critical mass and i was tired of commenting anonymously. but i don't feel like keeping two blogs, not even if all i do is "mirror" the first onto the second site. so my blogger-page only has one entry, which points people here.

[pressburger.livejournal.com]

I mostly post Op-Eds. Not entirely sure why I post op-eds. i just feel compelled to do it. I suppose I should have included self promotion since I post the Post time Tribune fake news.

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

Yes, I was agreeing with you... sorry if that wasn't clear.