Three to five hundred word blog? Easy peasy lemon squeezy, or is it?
Since starting to blog in July of last year I’ve racked up 17 posts that contain well over 20,000 words. I have a few loyal followers and manage to get between 60 and 80 hits per post. Not a big deal I know, but I feel somewhat seasoned in the art of writing something and putting it out there into the aether. It’s fun, it’s creative, it’s great to get a reaction, and for the conventionally unpublished writer, a cry from the wilderness: “Hear me, I too can write.” The Not So Easy Rider was not my first attempt at blogging, I once did a blog about my existential crisis, not a good idea, I have realized that an existential crisis is really only interesting to the individual that’s having it.
So why do we blog? Perhaps I should ask the question, ‘why do we write’, first. (Now here’s a question, does the last sentence need a question mark?) I know why I write, I’m good at it and I enjoy writing and one day it will make me rich and famous… oh well, when you stop dreaming you might as well put your head into the oven and turn on the gas. There is of course more to it, I write to have my ego stroked, I’m an introvert, but like any other human I crave the approval, and if possible, the adoration of others. Tell me you love my work, comment, ‘like me’ on Facebook, Twitter and whatever, and most of all, COMMENT ON THE BLOODY BLOG. I get e-mails, ‘Love the blog, great read,’ this is nice feedback, but dammit, I’d love everyone else to see this.
I have heard writers say that they write for themselves… what a load of BS, we write for other people to read our words and if we can’t get a people to buy our words in a book, then at least by blogging we can get them to read them for free. Bloggers are just modern day pamphleteers, we walk in the footsteps of those that have honorably gone before us. If Thomas Paine lived today, he would have been an avid blogger!
The Not So Easy Rider blog has helped me to find my genre, I have realized through this blog that I should be doing travel writing, it comes easily to me, I enjoy doing the research and love the travels, especially when I’m riding my motorcycle, and what a great way to get your notes down. There is a book coming from this, maybe this will be it: ‘The Motorcycle Dairies.’ Oh damn, that’s been done, curse you el Che, you took the best title possible.
