Confessions of a Blogger

After reading Manda’s post titled Confessions of a Blogger, I decided to answer the same questions.

I love answering questions, so if you have a question you would like to ask me, I’m happy to answer as long as it isn’t too rude or personal. I answered readers’ questions back in 2009 (in this post too) but it will be interesting to see what kind of questions people want to ask four years down the track. If I get any questions I will publish them in a blog post before the end of the year. :)

Anyway, onto the Confessions of a Blogger questions.

When did you first start blogging and why?

I started blogging in around 2002. I started out writing short, quick posts on my webpage, and quickly transitioned to LiveJournal. I knew about LiveJournal through one of my family friends, who said that it was great to find friends and connect with people at school. I liked the idea of blogging because I had started to use a computer more, and as someone who had kept a personal diary for many years, blogging made sense.

Have you had any past online presence?

Prior to my blog at Hey Georgie, I had a blog called Heartdrops (heartdrops.org) from 2008. I have kept a lot of my blog posts from that era. For many years before that, I had a semi-private MSN Live Space (when it existed) called Consolation in a Jar.

Before owning a blog/tutorial website, I had a pixel art website that moved from free host to free host, and was also hosted at people’s subdomains. I was a part of a lot of the pixel community forums & message boards, and also played Neopets for a number of years. My username across various websites was Jazzmo (after a high school nickname) or Ginsiez, and during my pixel art days I was referred to simply as Gina.

When did you become serious about your blog?

I think I have always been serious about blogging. There was never a point where I wasn’t serious about it. I started to blog more often when I opened Heartdrops.org, blogging every second day. I was dedicated in the same way, on Consolation in a Jar, but I barely had time to write, so instead of 500-word bursts every day, it was novels of 3000 words a month.

What was your first blog post?

My very first blog post, I don’t remember. I count my first LiveJournal post as a first blog post, because that was in more of a blogging environment. I remember writing in terrible chatspeak about my classmate playing pranks. It was a very short post.

On Hey Georgie, the oldest post I have published is from 2009, when I moved from FanUpdate to WordPress. I missed using FanUpdate and it was such a huge change. I would have kept my older posts but because FanUpdate was so niche, there was no importer for it.

What have been your biggest challenges blogging?

Keeping up with returning comments was a challenge, until I realised that you really don’t have to respond to comments at all. It was one of those things that emerged in my “generation” of blogging. You had to return a comment by responding on someone’s blog. I think this was fuelled by the fact that some popular website owners never responded to any of their “fans”.

What is the most rewarding thing about blogging?

Meeting people, and getting support from strangers. Getting support for something you’re so passionate about, from people who you don’t even know, is lovely.

What is the most discouraging thing about blogging?

Not really getting much response to what you write. Let’s face it. A lot of bloggers say they don’t care, and I personally don’t mind if one of my posts gets zero comments, but deep down I care a little. A tiny bit. I know a lot of people read my posts, but when someone leaves a comment or writes something to me, that confirms it. Sometimes, bloggers have a mindset that’s a bit like, “I love this post. I really hope everyone else does”. But there’s disappointment because not many people had anything to say in response.

What is your lasting inspiration or motivation?

I am sometimes inspired by what other people write and will refer to their posts. A lot of my writing is in the form of stories. I love sharing stories and experiences, so there will be a lot of posts that reflect on the past or retell stories from my childhood. In life, there are also a lot of bad experiences, and I want to share those with people by looking back on them positively. Staying positive keeps me inspired and helps me write.

What is your blogging dirty little secret?

I backdate posts. Sometimes. But that’s because I’m pedantic and I hate when I don’t post something before midnight, and I don’t want the date to read the next day when it’s only 12:03am.

What is your current goal as a blogger?

I don’t really have one. It would be lovely to get my blog recognised on a more global scale, but that is more of a dream than a goal. I hope that more people can be inspired by my posts.

Have you learned or become passionate about anything through blogging that caught you by surprise?

I think I became passionate about music journalism through blogging. I used to write website reviews, which were linked to my blog, and I decided to try reviewing some movies and books I had recently read. From there, I wrote about music and reviewed gigs I had been to. I wrote about them so passionately and it really made me want to write more. From there, I found some music blogs to write for and photograph for.