It’s been 3 years since I first started my blog. But it wasn’t a blog for sharing. It was a blog for myself. A place to write freely without consequence, even more freely than on a platform like Odyssey’s, because it was for my eyes only.
I wasn’t always active in posting in it. There was no deadline like Odyssey’s, after all, so I had no real incentive to post it at a constant pace. Yet, I fell into some sort of groove over time anyways (until 2nd year hit, unfortunately). It felt very satisfying to see my writing in a published format, but without the means for anyone else to see it and respond to or criticize what I had to say. It was for myself, so that I had a means to access my feelings and produce something out of my emotions, whether it be anger or sadness or joy, instead of acting out on my feelings in a more negative way.
So in that sense, yes, it was like my diary. My thoughts were reproduced and saved on digital paper for no one else to see. But using a blog as the medium to hold those thoughts is what sets it apart from a digital diary.
Blog entries don’t always consist of personal narratives or rants of the day. It can hold video clips, pictures, and any other form of writing. On several occasions I’ve posted poetry and song lyrics that I otherwise could not put into a diary.
It’s about giving your thoughts personalization and making them come to life. The actual word vomit on its own is the main contributor to the blog’s emotional release, but being able to do more with the thoughts that you’ve poured out than just stating them makes it fun to speak your mind. Before I even posted a notable number of entries, I spent a multitude of hours through a myriad of graphic design websites until I found the perfect layout for my blog. The perfect layout to display my thoughts on. And then even after picking the layout and posting more and more entries, I would choose a specific icon to match the tone of the entry I had written.
As a blog, it has more to be used out of it than a simple word processor does. In the end, sure, it’s still all for yourself and no one else will be able to see the layout you specifically chose, or the creative liberty you took in formatting your more literary pieces, but that’s the point. Here you have a digital file of your life, spruced up to reflect your individualistic characteristics, that you get to look back on while you’re still developing it.
Publishing writing is not a bad thing. Writing for yourself is something that I’ve personally found fulfilling. Doing just that alone isn’t a bad thing because you’re doing it for yourself, but it could be even better to do both.
Write for yourselves. Write for others. Both are admirable.
