In those feverishly exciting early years of blogging Liz Lawley (a.k.a. mamamusings) was one of my favorite blogging buddies, and I’m excited to see she’s decided to blog more again, rather than leaving ideas and conversations on Facebook or Twitter. Some obvious problems with having most of our conversations on Facebook or Twitter is the forced brevity, that conversations happen in a non-public forum (good in some cases, bad for research though) and that its hard to search or access old conversations, even one’s own, and certainly other peoples’.
I’m going to blog more often, too. When I make time to blog, I not only feel more engaged with my research and teaching and have more interesting ideas, I also quite simply enjoy my job a lot more. Not too surprising, really…
Rachel Cunliffe
Hi Jill,
Have been reading your blog for a while and I wrote along similar lines here:
http://www.cre8d-design.com/2010/10/the-lifespan-and-depth-of-tweets-vs-blog-posts/
Thought you might be interested in it?
Rachel
Jill
Oh, YES, Rachel – thanks for those excellent, considered links – these are exactly the things I love about blogging. And I liked your birth story too, and you’re right: there’s great satisfaction to both the immediacy of instantly putting it out there and the instant response, but also to actually processing the thoughts, and not least, the more permanent archive.
For me, Twitter coincided with the arrival of my two youngest kids and a HUGE decrease in the time I am able to spend on thinking about anything other than small kids. So I think I got hit by a double whammy there – my blog archives drop off ridiculously from 2007 on.
Rachel Cunliffe
Ah so true. The (regular, cough) 5 minute me-time on Facebook or Twitter is mentally much easier than the rare 15 minute dedicated writing time, yet I find the writing much more satisfying in the long run. Thanks for blogging more again!
Joke Beyl
Dear Jill,
As a PhD student researching literary writers’ weblogs, I decided a couple of months ago to start blogging myself. I wanted to experience what I was studying, but I also felt the need to let people (and I am still not too sure who I actually intend to reach) know about my work. Up until today I still have mixed feelings about my blog. I read the article you linked to in your post before and I reread it today, and I really relate to it. I like blogging, it helps me to reflect about my work and to get to know myself better. Yet, I doubt. I doubt whether to write in English or in Dutch, I doubt whether to write about my work or also about my personal life and interests. I doubt because of the limited number of responses, because I doubt whether I want more or less public presence.
Anyway, it is quite intriguing that because I blog, I now think about what it means to blog in our present culture even more and perhaps also in a different way than before.
Kind regards,
Joke Beyl
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