Why Blog?

Why should people blog?

This question came up recently on a writers' board and it got me thinking. There have to be thousands if not millions of blogs out there - some of them hardly ever read by another living soul - so why do we all bother?

Well, I blog for my own benefit as much as anyone else's. It's a good discipline to write with the possibility (however remote) of being read. And it's fun. Sometimes it gives me a chance to show off about my successes, moan about my problems and vent some spleen when some injustice winds me up. It's frustrating sometimes not being able to say exactly what I want to say, for fear of giving offence or being sued. But that's part of the discipline. Writing is more than just pleasing yourself, after all. You have to have the reader uppermost in your mind at all times.

There are lots of different types of blog out there. The most boring ones are not the personal, meandering type, but the ones that nag endlessly about the same few subjects. When the blogger stops writing about their own impressions and starts shamelessly preaching I get turned off. So in my opinion some of the most high profile blogs are actually the worst. Small scale and personal are usually the more interesting. I'd far rather read one person's honest reactions than be lectured.