Thursday, May 24, 2007

A Blogger on Blogging


This was an assignment from the Bloggers Anon Website. I don't have time to link it right now but I will come back and link it.

Blogging.
I started my blog on Yahoo 360 back in August of 2005. It started out as a private online journal and then I invited about 13 people from my address book. Most i knew from real life and a couple from the internet.

Once in awhile they would comment but not always so I never really knew if they read it. it went like that for 5 months. I was alot more political back then and poetic. A compassionate conservative, if you must...haha NOT! Well, it is no secret I am to the right but I dance in the left when i feel the need to and it is often since I made the switch back in '02. I don't regret making the switch YET, but sides piss me off so much that I am seriously thinking Independent....if only that meant more to me than...."I really don't have an opinion...I want to walk in the middle." And you know what they say about walking in the middle?
"You get squished! Justa Lika grape." Miyagi-The Karate Kid, circa 1984 0r 85.
Anyway so yeah I am a repub but I speak my mind about the current idiot a slight majority of idiots voted in.
Note- I did not vote for him....and that will get me through the pearly gates.
Anyway before I go off on a spout like Sister Daisy does about Walmart, let me get back to blogging.
When I officially started lurking 360 and other people's blogs or as I call them OPB (yeah you know me) it was about Januuary of 06...and I was amazed that I could sit in my basement apartment in Nebraskee and read the thoughts of a single mother of two wild teen age girls in Washington, a wild in the closet to his family but out of the closet on his blog drama queen from Nashville, a nerdy Walmart hater that switched from the right to the left in the south, a cultured gay guy in NYC with wonderful snaps from a city i have yet to see, a silly lady from Down Under, an American married to a Belgian living in France, a mysteryman in the Chicago area, and on and on. I mean my world was endless in that basement apartment.
I was addicted right off the bat! I burnt a couple of dinners over 360. i loved it. I started blogging for them. Jokes i think they would like or silly things that happened to me that day. Soon I was participating in blgowide challenges and events.

Then my computer crashed.

DOOMSDAY!

And I realized how addicted i was.
I swore to never burn another dinner.
To stop letting my kids fall asleep at me feet....ha! Just teasing.
Anyway...I still blogged from the library. I still blogged when i was connected again.
I just tried hard to get back to what it was in the beginning. Blogging from the heart. Writing from the heart.

Then on one important piece in the history of my people, i was attacked. I know this is so dead and gone and we all know it was done for attention. I am SO over it, and am only bringing it up as a tip to new bloggers.
I was attacked and many friends, wonderful friends rallied around me to suppost me. But I was devastated, like that time in 7th grade when I started a fundraiser as a class report for the famine in Ethiopia and these mean boys told me mean Ethiopian jokes at recess. I couldn't stop crying. I am that way, i have a lot of passion in me when I believe in soemthing. And I am very sensitive. Anyway my teacher let me lay down till i gained my composure and ranted those boys out in front of the class for their insensitivity.
That si how I felt....hurt. how could one of my readers whom I respected say such mean things about the past of my people, that was never really brought to attention in history anyway? I was pissed, i ranted, I wrote mean blogs about him. I stooped to his level.
Then I forgave him. And we talk, but we are not "blog friends" like we was. i left my blog in Yahoo 360 this year. I had to be weened but I left. Too much drama and cliques. I still read people I love to read from there. Or those that allow me to, and I do miss it. But there are many more things I don't miss than I do.
I now blog seriously on Blogger...yeah it is not 360. But I love it here. I can write without the drama of a thousand people jumping on any bandwagon if drama happens. And so far it has been drama free.
My advice to new bloggers?
-Avoid drama.
-Write from the heart.
B-e honest with what you write because of all people...you know if it isn't.
-Most importantly-write for you, first and foremost.

And if people don't like that?
Fuck 'em.
After all, you are writing for you. Right? Write.

PS- And if your bloggy has speelcheck....USE IT! I obviously am that lazy that I dont.

PPS_ Obviously HBO did not feel that the important piece of history I was attacked for on 360 was stupid and forgetful...check it out on HBO on May 27th, ...Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee.

Note-pic stolen from some FBI website on Google Image Search

9 comments:

josie2shoes said...

Yes, blogging is very addictive! There is a point where one needs to step away from the computer a bit and participate in life.

I think your advice is a good reminder. It is clearly obvious when one writes from the heart - like you do!

I'm going to write what I feel like writing, how much or how little and whatever bad words... and if it offends, too bad. No one is forced to read it.

Oh crap, I don't get HBO! :-(

Alissa said...

Yeah, I don't get HBO either. Oh, well.

I was a sick addict too, but the drama and school kinda drove me away. Then as I saw my friends that I cared for and respected on 360 drop like flies, I became even less interested in blogging and my family stopped blogging.

But you brought me over here, and slowly, the urge to blog is returning and what is nice, is I don't depend on "viewer support" to feel validated. I don't need to comment, and I don't have needy people here demanding that I comment on their pages. I read what I want because of desire, not obligation. It's been hard to be connected to some boring people that I can't bare to delete because they are so nice and friendly at 360, but my eyes glaze over as I try to read their blog, and I worry that people feel that way about me. At least here no one is obligated to read and/or like my shit.

Missy A said...

I'm imagining Allisa in a totally glazed over state now ...glazed Allisa, sounds tasty .
As for spelling na not too bad better than mine I'm a sotting spiller and I got this will put it up later on today

Kate said...

Hmmm... you know I still do my primary blogging on blogspot... I've also opened a live spaces that I'm working on for my "serious" blogs on politics and society... But I thought about the number of page views I get on Yahoo compared to blogger and wonder WHY I have shop adds on blogger when I get literally 10 to 100 times the daily page views on Yahoo.

My shop sales have gone up 400%.

Mike, Jacqui and Ieuan Mackrill said...

Hi Dana,
I still am on 360, but only because I have good blogfriends on there, some of which I recognised from your description of your blogfeinds! I am sorry that the haters drove you away. Your page is now on my favorites!
Keep in touch
Mike M

Dana Dane said...

i do miss 360....not rewally putting it down....just saying it was too much drama for me...all my peeps still blog there.


as for hbo in the end i still ...well hbo still had the final say so

Anonymous said...

Great Post Dana!

I feel so fortunate or maybe I'm too introverted?

I'm going to think about my bloggy reads like you described those from January 06... and see what I come up with..

*hugz* ~Heidi

JohnB said...

It's cool to hear this history...an in-depth perspective on cause and effect...

Kate said...

blah, now I have an idiot who USED to be afriend posting that all I do is advertise, like 360,000 page views are from ads. Some people can be such pin heads. you know there are a few people over there I really enjoy reading and talking with. The problem is that for some reason Yahoo feeds are not terribly reliable, and I don't always get the feeds on my Google Reader or LiveSpace.

I'm just getting totally discouraged by the whole thing.