Ch-ch-ch-changes and why DO I blog????

So we went to the mountains yesterday and my new banner (do you like???) is just a taste of what we saw (I'll be posting them in the next day or so).  I am still not ready for fall but I am ready to accept that we are heading toward winter and I fully appreciated the beauty of the day. I was also deeply grateful for the long warm fall we having again but... 

Folks, if the significant changes in the weather patterns don't convince you that there is something deeply wrong then nothing will. Here in Colorado, I think we have been fortunate that we have experienced mostly good weather. Where it was really dry before, we have had extra rain, our warm weather has lengthened and the cold weather is not nearly as cold before (I am not sure the ski resorts would be as excited as I am about this!) but that's good news to a warm weather baby like me. I dread the cold! (though I love Christmas as you shall see and be tortured with!!!) But not everyone has been so lucky! In the last year alone the US has had $35 billion in damages from the extreme weather conditions and the government is now in the process of making sure we won't have the money to help communities who have been flooded or destroyed by tornadoes. Could be rough times ahead! 

 

At any rate, I thought I would take a stab at the prompt for yesterday... briefly. 

I began blogging because of NaBloWriMo. Amy Kalinchu of Craft-E Revolution suggested I start a blog and join NaBlo. Why would I want to do that? Because you're a writer and it's a good way to get good writing habits started of writing every day. It seemed logical so I did. That's how this blog started. I wasn't writing for anyone but myself and I didn't really comment on anyone else's blog. I didn't know the proper etiquette and was a little taken aback when I got comments. I ranted a bit and did some real writing on my fiction work here.  It was a real work in progress. I started making some connections though and saw the benefits of blogging. The blogging community is a fine one! 

Last year after NaBlo, I did a Blogfest and connected with more writers and I quickly made a whole bunch of friends. The community has been a warm one! I enjoy all my friends immensely.

I now have my blog as more of a display for my pictures, as you will see. I do comment on the world around me occasionally and I do sometimes insert some of my writing, but since writing is a passion that takes time which I hope to be paid for some day I don't want to offer it up for someone to steal. And since putting hot topics up for the public to view could wind up in the hands of my bosses at work, I try not to be too intense publicly. I save that for twitter actually! lol. So on this blog, you will generally find the expression of my eye, perhaps if I had had the passion of an artist with the paint brush. So I hope you enjoy and stop by now and then to comment! 

A final look back at spring!

 

What's in it for me???

So back from the blog vacation and while I was "gone" I was thinking about the next big post I wanted to write. In the real world I was working a lot. I am on a task force (sounds very formidable and formal doesn't it?) that is putting together a training manual for The Library. It's not finished yet but the biggest part of it is done and is a 250+/- document. My share was much smaller but it took a lot of my energy. So now that we've got the big stuff done, perhaps (perhaps???) blogging can be more like usual. Life when I wasn't working has been full of the usual walks on lovely mountain paths...

At any rate, as I pondered what I would I write and one of the things that I have been thinking about was why do I blog? Why do any of us blog?

So maybe I should just start at the beginning. (This may take more than one post... ) 

In October it will be three years. I began blogging because a teacher friend- Amy Kalinchuk  of Craft e-Revolution said I should blog and join NaBloWriMo. Why would I do that? and what in the world is NaBloWriMo and why would I join? A blog is an online journal she said as she sat in my comfy blue chair and NaBloWriMo is National Blog Writer's Month and a bunch of us all sign up to write on our blog every month. And why would I do that?  Because you're a writer and it's good practice- a place to write every day. 

Blue skies peering down at us through the rock.

At the time, I was working as a middle school librarian with the pay of a paraprofessional. I didn't have a teaching degree or a MLS but I was expected to do all the same tasks the teaching librarians did (learning on the job)... without the pay. In some regards though it was a great job and one of the great things about it was that I had some time to write when the work was all caught up and there wasn't a heavy stream of kids in the library. Kids would trickle in and I would have time to do my own thing whilst supervising the book shoppers (although generally they were just trying to get out of class so I always had to make sure I was keeping an eye out on the time). Blogging seemed an easy way to write what was on my mind without requiring too much solid concentration. 

Mo took this picture a mile or so into our hike. 

NaBloWriMo was quite a challenge but it was fun. I didn't really know the etiquette of blogging, didn't know I should follow people or have any desire to have followers (in fact I kind of dreaded them I think). I wrote on politics and religion and my family and I was always somewhat surprised (perhaps taken aback!) when someone would comment. It wasn't until I met a real blogging (Key West Diary) community that I started seeing how fun a blog could really be! 

You meet people and you have conversations. Perhaps you support one another or you just have fun. Whatever the case, many times you find things in common because you are writing about things that you care about and that others who like what you like are commenting on your blog or commenting on your comment. So, now I found two reason to blog. I was writing and I was making connections (although admittedly there were still not a lot of people stopping by my blog). But as I move on, I think there it's time to process this thing out because blogging takes time and building a community of followers who are really friends takes time. Having gained 182 followers (and I appreciate each and every one of you!!!) takes time! But is it worth it? Is it taking away too much from writing? Or will it have pay off and if so, how? What's blogging doing for me? 

So what about you... What is blogging doing for you?