Why Would I Write a Blog?

by Kat Arnsby

I like writing. I like reading blogs. I like the word ‘blog’.

I can’t write a whole long book.

I’m pretty sure I can rule out having a lot to say as my reason to write a blog. (Ha! ‘blog’, great word!) I’m not reporting anything. I’m not a traveller, or an activist, or a scientist, or a philosopher, or a chef, or a spoken word poet, or a credit to any field anywhere.

The internet brought me here against my will. It’s kidnapped me by putting brilliance, wit and learning at the tips of my fingers, and unlike books, it doesn’t end up with my chocolaty finger marks all over it after use.

The internet never stops. If you go anywhere else and stay there, eventually you’ll stop finding new stuff. Not the case on the internet. Everything links to somewhere and something, and even if it’s shite, it’s something else, something new; a never ending satisfaction of the biological itch for finding a peculiar existent and stabbing our brightly coloured flag in it.

I’m probably getting a bit excited about it there, but I am a recovering luddite and I’m just recently part of the technological revolution. I’ve used the internet regularly for only five years; with three and a half of those exclusively spent gambling. Five years sounds like a long time, but it doesn’t feel that way when you get shown how to work stuff by a six year old. “Look Auntie Kat. You can animate that text… watch…”. “Oh. Really? But I don’t want to. Is that okay?”

Old habits die onerously, and my old reading and writing habits involved paper. I used to think publishing could only be printing. Publishing used to be a massive personal achievement involving the labour of many men and machines, seeped in the smells of dead trees and ink. Then I realised the modern world offers the opportunity for publishing words by pushing a button, or more accurately, ‘clicking’ something named after a button.

If the information revolution means I can be a published author, or at least a publishing author; then I’m joining up, albeit in a tardy fashion.

I’m going to write a blog because other people do it. I do things that other people do. I’m going to write a blog because maybe just one person, 3000 miles away will read it and imagine what I’m like without ever having to meet me. I’m going to write a blog because I can.

And finally because I do really like the word ‘blog’.