Friday 7 August 2009

A Manifesto for the long road ahead...



A.K.A
Destination Discovered.

The answers to what we want & expect out of our blogs are each as individual as we are. For some it is more of a personal record made public for the convenience of their friends & family, for others it is a social networking tool used to engage in conversation with like-minded souls, it can be a platform for the philosophically minded or a gallery for the creative. For me, so far, it has been all four. Now 9 months old, physiologically my blog is only now ready to be born, having grown from a seed to what it is today. The labour pains have started & I have been asking myself where is is I am actually heading...(due to the fact that when I started my blog I had had only read one blog before & was unsure where I was going with it but just knew I wanted to start on a journey to an unknown destination...) I have decided that my blog is first & foremost my gallery & thereafter my platform for topical debate. As simple as that sounds it has actually taken me quite some time to decide!

My aim is to provide visual inspiration, enjoyable instruction & provoke thoughts on life that ultimately influence the way we record our memories. Of course snippets of my own life may prove as useful examples to illustrate my point/s but I have decided to start ANOTHER private blog for the sake of documenting my personal activities, trials & setbacks, that I may otherwise forget & may want to record in more detail than I feel is necessary on my blog. {this one} Of course this is ANOTHER thing to do but should be achieveable. I plan on also "going back in time" aswell & gradually penning my life story for my children (& my children's children's) interest. I have never been a great journal keeper, having numerous half journals in my possession & random snippets of my thought processes in my personal file. The advantage of a JOURNAL BLOG will be a simple, safe, permanent record of my life that should be easier to maintain with more regularity than the traditional diary route. I am looking forward to honestly recording my daily life, my hopes & goals, my achievements & successes, my sorrows, my setbacks & my pain in one safe, permanent & easily accessible place. With a simple template & no sidebar gadgets to consider it will be easily printable so I will be able to regularly transfer it to a file that I hope will make riveting reading to my loved ones when I'm gone LOL (will have to mind my P's & Q's to a certain extent then...) or perhaps not print out each & every post ;-D

This is therefore another scrapbook of sorts. Not a visual reminder this time, but a memory keeping project nonetheless & one that I know I would pour over had my mother kept one. Just a thought...maybe you are experiencing a similar "blog identity crisis" & this post may help you decide on "where to go from here", as well as sparking some ideas on a simple form of "scrapbooking" for the time-strapped, for those "lean" patches between our creative frenzies!


7 comments:

tania said...

Helen I think you reached a part of your blogging goal very early!!! You already inspired a lot of people,thanks for that. . .

Lynette Jacobs said...

I can't really define my blog at all. It is quite random...my thoughts, feelings, things that make me happy, things that make me sad...scrapping, family.

Shayne said...

When i started my blog it was to show-case my scraping - but i've found that i enjoy documenting my life far more - so the scrapping has taken a side-step. i often think about starting a scrappy only blog - but as you say, it's another thing to do - and i'm time strapped as it is. so for now my blog will be much of what it is - my daily ramblings, hopes, dreams, moans and here and there the most gorgeous scrappy page to inspire all those wannabees out there!

thanks for super informative and thought provoking blog.

Ella Swan said...

I am always a bit anxious when I press Publish on a post like this as I am never entirely sure if I am the only one that has these thoughts...Thank you Tania. I leave a lot of comments around Blogland because I love to receive them (positive reinforcement) & I believe what goes around comes around...Lynette, clearly you are doing a lot right because you have a pretty massive following! I love to read your tales of life, trials & family & to drool over your gorgeous stash from ATC LOL! Shayne - isn't it funny - you & I have both done the opposite to the other! You started out with a scrappy blog that metamorphasized into a lifestyle one & I kinda did the opposite. I have found that I love to share my scrappy process in all it's forms & love to put something thought-provoking out there for digestion occassionally (like this post)so have decided that I need to hone in on that, time being a very real consideration for me. We all have different criteria to define what makes our blogs successful. For me it is not in the comments & the followers (although I love you all!) as some of my best bloggy friends have not even joined my followers list & I know it doen't mean a thing...I take my Sitemeter Stats very seriously because THEY are the true indicator of how many hits my blog is getting, how long people are staying, etc, so as long as they are stable or on the up I am one very happy scrapper!

Andrea said...

Hi Helen, lovely entry...as you know my blog has always been a journal of our journey and it has in fact replaced scrapping for me altogether....keeping an online diary whether for yourself or public consumption is a very cathatic experience and one I rate way up there with the best things i have ever done.
xxx
A

Desire Fourie said...

TFS this interesting insight to what purpose blogs serve and what it means to each one of us. Can't believe you have been in blog land for only 9 months as you have truly metamorphasized into a masterful photo journalist depicting your day to day experienced in our beloved South Africa. You are truly inspiring.
Hugs
Desire

Diana said...

You can put this one on your list of "posts to read if you are here for the first time" (smile)