Greg Morris - What Is Your Blog?

When I first started writing on the internet it was a weird time. I wasn’t the first to do it, but I did zero research and just decided that was what I wanted to do. Without any clue how to use WordPress, or any CMS of that matter, I would write HTML pages and link them all together. A static site of sorts, but one I was prepared to put loads of work in because I wanted to be a ‘writer’. I wanted to do all the things that the technology writers I looked up to did and access all those sweet gadgets in the process.

I agree that there is nothing wrong with having hopes and ambitions, a boy can dream as they say. Well, I was a fully grown adult at this time, but I still had a dream. I bounced around some tech news sites, publishing loads of articles, at some points 2-3 a day — all for free. I thought this was the way to make it to the big time. It was, but I was looking at it all wrong.

The great thing about blog posts—as opposed to things destined for print, or even tweets—is that when you spot a typo, you can quietly fix it, and most people are none the wiser. One can take comfort in that, even as everything else falls apart.
— Mαtt Thomαs (@mattthomas) May 18, 2019

I desired a future where my words were read with the interest with which I consumed others. Poignant, and sought out by readers that valued what I had to say on the matter. I treated my blog as such, constantly fretting that it wasn’t good enough, the design didn’t live up to the modern web and worrying that I didn’t produce weight content. My blog needed to be what I wanted my future to look like, a digital version of “dress for the job you want”.

The trouble was I wasn’t particularly good at it. I didn’t have hot takes enough to drive a following and I couldn’t follow through on my desire to pump out content. So as my desire and drive faded, the thoughts towards my blog began to wane. What I wanted my blog to be changed, and although I tried to rekindle that romance last year, it is now something made just for me. A reflection of myself.

It has errors, terrible old posts, and more than a few takes that turned out to be completely wrong – and that’s ok. My blog is me, I have an edit button, and a delete button, but it goes me something that nothing outside of blogging can give me. It is a digital extension of all the weird stuff that floats around in my brain. It’s my blog.