Why I Do This Thing Called Blogging

Blogs are strange beasts, aren't they? Both egotistical and stupid. Egotistical cause you're hoping people will read what you have to say. Stupid cause no one is paying you for it. You're just giving it away, is the common refrain. And I'll not hold back from telling you that I don't post my fiction up here for a reason.

Blogs are not all bad, though, I hope. While most readers (and followers!) of blogs write blogs, there are those few who are starting to see that this still very new form of writing might have something going for it.

Initially I didn't want to start a blog. It was my wife's idea (and few other friends who figured it made sense for a guy who claimed to be a writer but hadn't published much). Yet with time it's grown on me. Some months I've even really loved doing it, playing with it, hopefully improving it. Getting talented friends to post their pictures, or sharing a favourite selection of songs - these things are fun. Along the way I may even have come to begin to understand the purpose of the form - when I feel like I'm sharing the kind of cafe chat I'd like to be part of. When I feel like I might be providing three or four minutes of something interesting on your lunch break. Another site to visit when the facebook news feed runs dry (I know, I know, it will never run dry - I was being metaphoric).

That said, I often do sit back and wonder to what end, for what, to whom, and why? I can admit there are times I wonder how much longer I'll continue.

But here I am again, returning after a brief hiatus, a little vacation. And even then, on beach or bus I did, in a sense, have this blog on my mind. Though very much for my fun (and more on that next post) I re-read a favourite novel on my trip because any time I write one of my little essays recommending an old favourite, I feel the need to re-read it, to get it right, to know what I want to say.

That's what I wanted to share with you, tonight. That despite the cynical feelings and the doubts, despite mine being one of millions of blogs out there, I still do aim to take it seriously. Here is my chance to work on my craft, and even get the odd bit of feedback. Here is my chance to stand up on the old soap box, like some Rasta bible salesman on a Manhattan corner, prosletyzing my shtick. And my shtick is fiction and movies. It's just my nature to share the things I love.

There. That's the purpose of my blog.

Hope you'll stick around while it lasts.