On Blogging

I've always wanted to be a writer, ever since I was a kid, and I was actually quite good at it back then. I used to take concepts and scenarios from things I'd read and seen on TV, jumble it all around, add in some ideas of my own and come up with something new. I was upcycling before the word upcycling had even been invented (or reinvented?). Somewhere in my teenage years I lost interest, I guess sitting at home filling a blank page with words couldn't compete with what my mates were up to outside in the real world, so the real world won. The victory wasn't total, however, because the desire to write, to create stories and express ideas, never went away completely, I just ignored it for a few decades.

Eventually I found my way back, after I had become aware of a thing called blogging. People weren't submitting drafts to publishers anymore, forlornly hoping that one of those gatekeepers might just see something worth taking a chance on. No, if they had something to say they just published it on a ready made website for the whole world to read, and if enough people read it then any number of doors might open up for them. How enticing is that? Low cost, minimum effort, endless potential. I had to have a go, because, well, who knows? In my head I thought that maybe I'd be one of the lucky ones, that my blog might go viral, and I could end up writing novels, TV shows or movie scripts.

Maybe.

Maybe not.

I created a blog and set to work writing. Anything at first, just to get started. My thinking was that if I threw enough crap at the wall some of it would stick. I wrote about sport, politics and travel. I wrote short stories, flash fiction and poetry. I created listicles, self-help guides and wellness articles. There isn't much I didn't write. I thought that at some point it would become apparent what I was most naturally suited to and that my readership would increase accordingly. This didn't happen. 

After about five years of constant effort I became disillusioned. The amount of mental effort that goes into developing ideas and creating content for a blog can be taxing, and the time cost is incalculable. I have no idea how many hours I spent staring at my phone or my laptop, agonising over a word or a phrase, trying to make sure everything was just right. Does it flow? Is it too simple? Or, too verbose? So many questions! Unfortunately, the one question I never asked myself was: Would I read this?

The truth is, a lot of what I wrote just wasn't very good. Not terrible, but not great either. Some of it was interesting and well written, and bits of it were even quite funny, but very little of it would've made me, as a reader, think that it was good enough to share with others. So nobody did. Some people clicked the 'like' button, a few people posted kind comments, but nobody shared it.

Once I'd realised that my big break wasn't just around the corner, and that nobody was going to reach out to me with a contract or a book deal, I simply stopped doing it. No sign-off and no explanation, and, if I'm honest, I don't think anybody noticed.

So, you may be wondering why I'm doing this? Why am I blogging again, especially now in the post-ChatGPT era? After all, I'm no longer only competing with other humans. These days if I want my words to be read I have to somehow be better than a machine which can harness the power of a thousand suns to scour the entire history of written English to create content. 

I can't compete with that. 

I just like writing. 

The same as I did when I was in primary school, when the only person who read my words was Mrs Jackson, and she had to do it because it was her job.

I'm doing it for me. Not for fame, money, or some romantic ideal. 

But, you never know, right?