Blogging
photo by Alex Beauchamp
5 years ago, I had no idea what a blog was. Today it's become a fairly significant part of my life. I was trying to think back the other day about how it all happened, and then remembered. It started with a jewelry search. One day, I googled "jewelry suppliers", and stumbled upon www.anothergirlatplay.com. It was like I had died and gone to heaven. All kinds of creative women pursuing their dreams, in one place. I sat for hours reading their stories. And then promptly got hooked on this thing called blogging. Now, even when I'm crazy busy there are at least ten sites a day that I feel like I have to visit. But it all started with Alex's site . So that made me wonder about everyone else. Do you remember the first blog that ever inspired you? I'm so curious to hear your stories too.
Reader Comments (49)
I believe the first blog I read obsessively was Chez Miscarriage by Getupgrrl which was brought to an end in October of 2005 after she had her son through a surrogate. I don't even know how I ended up on that blog. But it did lead me to other great blogs by other women, and I eventually found myself on Tracey's Picture This.
So that's the scoop on my blogging history! Thanks for the walk down memory lane. It's just in time for my blog's 6th birthday this Saturday.
I am very surprised at how happy blogging makes me. I'm writing more than ever. I started a new novel, and I attribute blogging to making my creative juices stir - exercising that muscle. Writing ideas just pour out of me now. And the people I meet - I feel like I have a new community. A blogging community. It's wonderful to connect with such creative women - like yourselves!
When we finally got pregnant I stepped out of the blogging closet, started a new blog for family and friends to follow along on our adventures with the new baby. Now I blog for my mental health as well as keeping family and friends updated. I've made many friends through blogging, and wouldn't trade it for anything.
I have always enjoyed writing and am so glad to have found a way to combine writing and photography.....what a great creative outlet. Another bonus is getting to meet all these new bloggy friends who actually know what I'm talking about when I say Lightroom or CS3...Lol!
JULIE
http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/juliestew
Blogging is such a part of my life now. I so enjoy it. I enjoy taking the pictures. Processing the pictures. Writing the blog posts. It seems like everything I see these days says to me "hey, blog this!"
And then I began to discover blogs in a variety of genres (art, photography, etc) and my world continued to open up.
Blogging has quite literally changed my life! And with Shutter Sisters, things only keep getting better! : )
Beautiful image, btw.
The friend's blog that inspired me is:http://bellaartgirl.blogspot.com/ she is a painter and homeschooling Mama with two girls, three really but one was lost very early. She is such a doll and is still always at the top of my list to check each day.
My first blog was also www.alexthegirl.com. I love her style of writing and wish she would post more. The other blogs I started reading first were Andrea Sher's blog: www.superherodesigns.com/journal and Pamela Barskey's blog at www.pamelabarsky.com/blog.php. Great inspiration and great photos. Now I love shuttersisters and your blog.
Over a year later, I am getting ready to start a photo blog (! inspired by many of the great photographers on this site) and have met so many wonderful people through this medium. I don't know what I would do without it.
Now, I work for a software company that enables people to blog, and this whole being public online thing doesn't freak me out as much anymore. I kind of like it.
Plus, I've met some really cool people online -- like you!
My two big inspirations were Spacegirl (who now blogs at http://trippyswell.com) and Pamela Ribon at http://pamie.com -- who I later found out was being a little fictitious in her online "honesty" but I forgave her because her book made me cry laughing.
p.s. Is that you in the photograph? It's hard to tell. Love the hat, the skirt, the boots... seriously I need to trade a website for some fashion advice...
At some point early last year, I noticed that every time I felt like putting a post up on the 'tumor, it would involve a picture. So I decided to start my own photoblog, and http://camerashy.atomictumor.com was started on May 5, 2007. I put up one photo each day.
I first learned about Shutter Sisters through http://www.katieallisongranju.com/ and feel very blessed to have found such a warm, supportive community full of talented women.
A couple of years ago a friend of mine started a blog as a way to chronicle her life here in America for her family in New Zealand and France. http://www.sippinghotchocolate.com/ She was honest, funny, and took beautiful photographs.
When we moved from my husband's hometown to a new farm several hours away she encouraged me to start a blog so our family and friends could keep abreast of our journey. I now have two blogs - one that is more personal for our family and friends, the other is all for me. It is an eclectic mix of all my interests - chocolate, family, faith, farming, photography, sewing, homeschooling.
I think I just can't ever stop reading and blogs are ever so much more exciting than the sides of cereal boxes.
My introduction to blogging was http://soulemama.typepad.com/ I love the way she captures her life with pictures. It's right up my alley.
~simply~
I started blogging after reading The Comfy Place: http://thecomfyplace.blogspot.com/
Jen B. made me realize that the tomorrows may never come. I need to do, appreciate and live now. How amazing is it that someone halfway across the world can change a life with a few simple words.
And, I must say that photo is gorgeous! I love it! Happy blogging all!
Alicia/Posy is the perfect combination of survivor, spitfire and sweetheart. Hula/Andrea is quirky and lovely and so beautifully fantastic/creative. Her Photobooth Fridays (http://hulaseventy.blogspot.com/search/label/photobooth%20friday) combined with Alicia's deeply moving post about her accident ( http://rosylittlethings.typepad.com/posie_gets_cozy/2006/03/an_anniversary.html ) were the final straw for me. I started my own blog in April of 2006. I am so happy to say that I consider each of these women to be my friends.
I have collaborated with Alicia on her big recent project. Andrea and I have been trying to be in the same city at the same time for over a year now (it helps that she moved only one State away last year). Real friends. That I have never sat in the same room with. Imagine that. And there are others (Steph, Elena, Vanessa, Danette, you?) that I hope to see across a table from me one day. My small contribution to this blog world has brought me true connection and so much satisfaction over the past two years. Just think of the people that I would not have met otherwise.
Just think.
After reading her book in Dec '07, I googled her to see what else I might find. Well, I found her blog, which lead me to Superhero Journal, Hula seventy, 3191 and many other amazing blogs by creative women worldwide. It wasn't immediate, but soon thereafter I began to think a little online forum of my own might be a good thing ... and it is a good thing in too many ways to enumerate here. But I'm grateful to Ali and so many others who opened my eyes and mind in this way.
Have a good day-
i started up 'blogging' again about a year ago. i had my 4th baby and suffered deep well of darkness as post partum depression set in. i decided to use a 'blog' as a way to simply write the 'good' things about my life as i struggled thru that dark time. it was a way of healing for me and i promised myself that it would only include 'good' feelings and good things. i have so much to be thankful and grateful for and i knew this deep within, but the ppd was hindering me from 'feeling' it.
once i got back on track...my blog remained a steadfast friend to me. i found that it holds {and still does} only good feelings attached to it. soon enough, i realized how friendships were being formed from readers, commenting on the things i shared...i was just amazed at how much wonder and goodness came from blogging....and to this day, i am hooked. i can't go more than a few days without visiting my favorite blogs.
I've dabbled in using blogs as a classroom tool (connecting students to each other and giving them a taste of writing for someone other than themselves or their teachers) and as a way to share photos and life details with family.
But nothing "took" -- not until I stumbled upon Ali Edwards' blog last year. That was it. I was inspired and now I'm a full-fledged blog addict. I started my own blog this January (lynlepre.typepad.com) -- a way to share the photos from my 356+1 photo challenge -- and in the chaos of my current life as a working mom with twins, it's my calm in the storm.
Love Shutter Sisters. So glad to have found it!
One day I read a post on Children in the Corn
http://childreninthecorn.blogspot.com/2007/06/now-then.html
which had old photos with no names and it was as though a light bulb went on in my head. I felt I had to start blogging immediately to document my family life and I started my own blog The Magpie Files
http://magpiefiles.blogspot.com/
that afternoon. I still feel an urgent need to record all the details and minutiae of our life - as though it is sand slipping through my fingers.
I have been inspired by Blackbird at Say La Vee
http://blackbird17.blogspot.com/
and by the vision of blogging described by the very courageous Sam at Toddlerplanet
http://toddlerplanet.wordpress.com/2007/08/14/internet-vacation/
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to record my gratitude to these inspiring women and all of other wonderful writers of blogs that I have read since that first lucky accident.
http://www.davidalanharvey.com was the first that i checked obsessively.
then http://www.dooce.com (still love and visit several times a day)
http://mblarue.blogspot.com (a sweet friend, and she really propelled me into the possibilities of blogging)
now i've found this AMAZING creative circle that i truly can not get enough of, all spiraling around together:
http://sparkletopia.squarespace.com
http://swirlygirl.typepad.com
http://jenlemen.com
http://dancingmermaid.com
http://matirose.blogspot.com
http://persistingstars.blogspot.com
(just to name a few...and right now i could name a couple of dozen, honestly)
the magic in all of this is that i feel like i've found my tribe. over this damn interweb. it's crazy. what it feels like is the salons of old...talking books, and art, photography, and color and design, and words...and...and...all the really important things. and to second what natala said above...learning about being a woman and loving being a woman.
My first 'blog' was on bebo and was designed for friends and family in the UK to keep up with us. Then I came across Melody at 'Slurping Life'!! Melody and her boys plus a friend in the US who used blogger was how I got addicted to blogging. I am currently trying to wean myself off it a bit in order to concentrate on 'real life' :-D