As adventures go, my foray into The Land of Blog has been fairly low key. No racing pulse, no sweaty brow nor dangers posed to life or limb. Instead of physical exertion or a challenge of stamina, employing words and images to convey the musings of my mind in a way that inspires and entertains is a summoning of intestinal fortitude on an entirely different plane.

I don’t know when the seed was first planted but for many years I have given thought to writing a book. The problem I faced was lack of a story. I knew that I enjoyed writing. Sometimes thoughts and phrases would pop into my head and I wanted to create a vehicle in which these random words could travel. I’ve given thought to writing about growing up in a family of six daughters and even came up with the literary names I’d give to each of us in the fictionalized account I might someday write. That, however, was the extent of it.

Then I began to learn about something called a blog. Wikipedia defines a blog as ‘a discussion or informational site’ on the internet ‘consisting of discrete entries (“posts”) typically displayed in reverse chronological order’. There are several posting web sites and web publishing tools available to get started with the process and for hosting your blog. As I started to research the mechanics of creating and assembling a blog I also pondered what it was I wanted to say, what I wanted to write about.

Just as there is a learning curve to the intricacies of blog development within the hosting tool of choice it is perhaps even more of a challenge trying to figure out writing style, blog statistics and methods for reaching out to (and retaining!) new followers and increasing the number of views and visitors to your blog let alone deciding what it is you want to post about every day.

One thing I’ve discovered in just these short three months (to be precise two months, twelve days)  is that it sure is difficult to know what will ‘connect’ with my readers. I’ve written some posts that I am certain will elicit several views, ‘likes’ and comments and get nothing but crickets. On the flip side, other posts send my site stats soaring and while I am always ecstatic to see my numbers going up, up, UP it is sometimes puzzling to understand why this post and not the other. Go figure. Lesson One: You write for yourself and not for the kudos and congratulatory comments that may (or may not) come your way. I have several posts on my blog that, while I was sure they would trigger positive reactions but didn’t, I am nonetheless quite proud of them and happy with the results.

Writing is scary. You’re putting yourself out there – proverbial warts and all – and really exposing yourself in an entirely new way. Many people post on Facebook and other social media but writing on a blog – and saying what it is that’s on your mind in a more expanded fashion – opens you up to rejection, reader comments that can be either welcoming or bruising, and perhaps worst of all indifference.

Still, we bloggers continue on because we love the words, we love the images and we enjoy the writing. Whether it be the clunk and growl and rattle of the written word or the luster and shimmer of a well-orchestrated symphony of letters arranged in a precise manner to convey the stories we wish to tell we blog because it makes us happy. Perhaps our pulses do actually race a bit. And while our brows may not be sweaty, at times our palms are! To us this is adventure of the highest order. This we must do.