As a young married woman I was enamored of journal keeping, but those who kept journals did so for their own enlightenment and for record keeping. The journal was never a public document. In an age when paper was scarce and expensive, tiny books were crammed with information: the daily weather, the money made from the sale of six eggs, how much was spun that day, the health of the livestock and on and on with the details of daily life. When every scrap of empty space was filled, the journal was stuck away somewhere and a new one started. Today those journals provide a window into the economic life, but seldom the emotional life of their writers.
Somewhere is a paperback document that chronicles my rage at the washing machine and a couple of months' worth of nonsense that seemed important at the time.
I read Julie and Julia by Julie Powel, and saw the movie. It was then, and still is, amazing to me that any ordinary person could have something to say that the world couldn't wait to gobble up.
I have been blogging now off and on for several years. I have a weekly short piece on Goodreads and was a regular blogger for Writers Who Kill for over a year. I don't think I had a very big audience. My audience is for my fiction, not my self- indulgent ramblings.
So here I am again with my own blog.
There has to be a reason I am doing this. Well there are several, and few if any have to do with my audience.
It grounds me in a weekly writing routine.
It give me a deadline to work to.
It give me a way to explore my motivation and inspiration.
It offers a chance to write non-fiction.
It's kind of like writing a letter home, to keep those I care about updated on my doings.
But that never answers the questions: why do you read blogs? What can I say that would interest you enough to keep you reading?
Do you want to know how a farm was run in the 1780s? Do you want to know why I knit but seldom spin? Do you want to know how my work at a museum turns up in my fiction? Do you want to know how I get the right words in the right order onto the paper? Do you want to know about my work with other writers of historical fiction to make sure the manuscripts out there are as good as they can be?
What can I say here that will satisfy both me and you?