Blogs: reading someone’s unfolding story

So.  New look, and finally a chance to sort out some of this blog.  I’m looking back through a lot of what I wrote at the start, later on, and right now.   And I realise that I’m starting to read my own blog as I read that of others: as an unfolding story.

Blogs come in all shapes and sizes.  Personal ones can vary hugely – some people post daily, others just when they have something new to share.  Which can vary a lot.  I know – I stopped writing for three years, and then started up again.

Having done a certain amount of reading of others’ blogs over the autumn, I now have a little list of people whose sites I check regularly.  They’re my equivalent of reading a daily newspaper, or getting regular letters from people I know well.

It seems strange to say – because I’ve never met any of them.  Many of these bloggers are based in the US – I came into a couple of different blogs through recommendations of individual posts from friends.

Those original posts impacted me, in different ways.  Sometimes what they have to say is right for you, that day, that hour even.  What they choose to write about is just right for the season you’re in.

But what keeps you reading them…is how they write.  And, it’s fair to say, also what they write about in general.

So when you find a blog you like, what do you do? Follow it – fine.  Again, some people will keep you well fed if they post regularly – others, it can feel a little like that school friend you like, but don’t know if they like you.  If you’re cool enough.

The days that they’ve written, and you find that post that feels like it’s directed at you – well, it can be a bit like that attention you’ve been wanting.  It can be worth waiting for – if the blog is good.

Re-reading that last little bit, it doesn’t sound so healthy.  But then – think about how you feel about any other writer whose work you like.  Journalists, columnists, writers of ‘thought for the day’.  Include radio presenters who you listen to every day.

What they have to say does something for you.  Or you wouldn’t keep coming back.  And what they have to say can feel a bit like treats, maybe; or little oases in a frustrating day when you just want someone to be nice to you – or get what your day looks like, because theirs might just be like that too.

So.  All well and good.  But if you like what they read, and want to soak it up – like running to the library and borrowing the next book of that author you like – how does it work on blogs? The archive.  The person they were when they started.  The person they’ve gradually become.

I started reading the archives of people’s blogs because I really loved the writing.  And I really wanted to know more about them too  – how they came to be interested in what they do, how they made transitions in life.  (In some cases, to work out how they got that huge readership, that regular number of comments, day in, day out.)

The interesting thing about doing this is that it varies between blogs, according to how they are set up.  Sometimes you go from post to post – you just see titles.  Sometimes you get a month at a time – but you have to read the latest post first.  Sometimes you jump into a month, and each post is shown by an icon, so you can kind of work your way around them.

In the case of one blog, I was able to go back to the very start.  To see how the person’s themes emerged, how their family grew.  Having read a number of their current posts, I was now getting their back story – right down to seeing when their writing took off, when they started getting recognition for what they knew about or were good at.

In the case of another, the blog had changed tack part way through.  It started as a bit of a how to – in their case, wanting to share ideas of teaching materials.  And it morphed into their own sewing business, the arrival of their children, with tasters of their teaching background still in the picture.

For another, I already knew they lived in Mexico but had come from the US – how had they got there?  Hiding inside the posts were hints at where their confident writing style had come from – other writing work, years of thinking and pondering that were now coming to life in statements on the screen.

Reading archives is  the equivalent of buying the box set.  It doesn’t matter where you came into the story – you can go back and make sense of it all.  You can savour it, or you can chomp your way through.  And when you are really enjoying the words, the ideas, and the unfolding story – it is as addictive as any TV show, any series of novels.

People are fascinating.  And blogs are one way of experiencing how varied, how unique people are – as well as how much we all share.