6 Hurrahs to Blogging

On the 6th anniversary of my blogging hosted at Blog-City, I have decided to simultaneously post my blogs there and here. However, the blogs would appear here a bit later than when they are originally published.

There would be a link from this blog to the original location too. Thanks for visiting and reading my blog.

To blog one must

On the 8th of December 2003, I believe I was in a hotel room in Berlin watching a news story on this seemingly passing fad called blogging or web logging as it was originally known. I thought for a moment, this sounds like an opportunity to just put my everyday thoughts on “paper”, there is lots I would like to talk about but without the company or companionship necessary to share these thoughts with your mind is in constant overdrive.

I had done some experimental writing before, some friends had before encouraged me to try technical writing and at one time I sent out a religious newsletter that related to very personal matters to a closed group of friends.

That day saw the first blog of now almost 1,300 blogs now.

Where to start and how

Blogging appeared to be a good outlet from where I was; after surveying all the different blogs online, I decided on a young Scottish company with the catching community feel of Blog-City.

Somehow, I felt the service can be better tailored in a smaller outfit than the megaliths that were reviewed on that programme.

Beyond that, Blog-City offered the easiest registration and management functionality I could find then – the landscape has changed.

Within a month, I had published over 20 blogs on all sorts of topics with many of the blogs exhibiting a rather complex writing style and recording great reading scale difficulty that I have had to work on without necessarily compromising the essence of my voice.

I also decided to keep the faith with Blog-City and took up a subscription with a 5 year duration, it was necessary to allow my blog a professional and uncluttered look with the adverts, pop-ups and other things I did not publish but were inferring by the service provider’s initiative.

Fun and more blogs please

I did not know for how long I would keep blogging up for, but it was fun to maintain but I think it was not until early 2006 that I really got into it with consistency and a broader range of topics which cover Nigeria, human rights and the bizarre.

I have created in the right gutter a section called My Themes which links to related blogs I have written with that particular theme.

Nowadays, I try to encourage other friends who have stories to tell to start blogging, they do not have to write a treatise, probably just two paragraph about the simple blogging concept of yourself, your views, your environment, how things affect you and maybe what that could mean in general.

You cannot tell your story in another man’s voice; it is why I do not read pretend autobiographies of the successful non-lettered cadre who have their pulp non-fiction ghost-written by some hungry arts major.

You have a voice, give it volume and let it be heard, I had to improve my writing from difficult to easier, you can improve your writing too from what it is now to better, it takes practice and review, apparently, only a blog can give you that kind of training.

Thanks

Finally, this is a note of gratitude to all who have read my blog in the last 6 years, more so to those who have left comments and ever more so deeply to those who regularly read my blog for all sorts of reasons.

And really, without Blog-City, where would I have had a soap-box to bellow from, now and again. Though it has changed from its humble beginnings, it still behoves me to be thankful for their consistently prompt, professional and friendly service.

Here’s to another 6 years of blogging.