Better Blogs

This week marks the one year anniversary of the inception of my blog [applause]. The purpose of starting Because I Said So was to get myself to write more often – I so often avoid working on longer pieces of writing because I’m tired, I don’t have enough time to get into it, I’m uninspired, blah, blah blah. My goal was to post something at least once a week, which I’ve pretty much done, although some of the posts contain barely any writing (but are interesting, nonetheless, no?).

With my blog, came the “Next Blog” button at the top of the screen. It allowed me to randomly peruse other people’s blogs from around the world, which tended to be self-indulgent and generally quite boring (for more on this, read my post about the Banal Blogosphere).

There is certainly a grand proliferation of banal blogs out there – websites that are perhaps only read by a handful of people known to the author (including this one – hi Mum!). Because of the unstimulating subject matter and limited audience, the blog form was first thought trivial. However, many blogs have caught on and log thousands of readers a day. Popular media types have started blogs (Rick Mercer, Kevin Frankish from BT, and George Stroumboulopoulos are a sample of some that I’ve read). The blog is now a valid media form and several “blogging communities” have cropped up – friends with blogs who link to each other.

My friend Lee, who used to write the now defunct See The Donkey blog, linked my blog to his when I first started (and I linked his to mine). We talked romantically about starting the new Toronto Literati – we were both in the process of writing novels and trying to make money off this creative writing lark. But what we talked idealistically about, I think is happening amongst the bloggers of the world.

I have found several intelligent, well-written blogs which I check semi-regularly – and I often find more by following the links on the good blogs. Bloggers comment on each other’s posts, thus providing me with links to a variety of appealing blogs. That Shakespeherian Rag has turned me onto Bookninja and Moonlight Ambulette (not only does this girl have a Virginia Woolf doll on her website, she also writes a piece about reading Flannery O'Connor, ending the post with a photo from a Sunday Times article about O'Connor and her own caption expressing her desire for a bag in the photo). I have all but abandoned the “Next Blog” button in favour of my own personal blog web in which I am often lost on a Sunday morning.

So happy anniversary to me, and here’s to another year of forcing myself to write, and a new year of finding more clever, engaging and readable blogs.