Right now, I am trying to participate in NaBloPoMo wherein my aim is to write one blog post per day for the rest of the month. This aims to increase my writing skills and simply let me get the hang of blogging consistently – something I’d need if I wanted to increase blog traffic and eventually make money out of it.
However, blogging effectively does not simply mean churning out posts on a daily basis. These posts must be something readers find relevant and interesting. Yet, I must also learn to strike the balance between blogging about things readers would find interesting and blogging as a means to express myself. When I discovered the world of blogging 8 years ago, my initial intent was to write about my feelings and emotions as well as my personal reflections on what I see happening around me. My blog was mostly centered on my own personal experiences and learnings.
As time passed and as I learned more, I discovered that there are blogs that tried to specialize into something. Something to which the blogger is also quite passionate about. Several times I tried to create what I call niche blog but eventually ended up writing in just one blog – Cerebral Insights. Quite wordy for most I must say but I cannot think of a better title to represent my blog.
Reading this post in WordPress’ Daily Post also made me think back to what I write in my blog. I blog about my personal thoughts and experiences but I strive to keep it confidential. Although I admit many of my friends and relatives know about this blog, I still strive to tell stories that would not incriminate anyone. And for the public, they can read my stories as if they were any other stories without knowing who is being referred to.
Blogging used to be so simple. And now, with the complicated rules on privacy, I see no reason why it cannot keep itself that way. I would like to still think that I am a private person whose personal thoughts and reflections are echoed in a public blog. Does that make me a public person then? I believe not.
This is really blue blooded blogger or addiction or whatever you call it. I am inside the bus, which is bound to leave for manila in a few minutes and here I am blogging. I should really be getting those next set of work done but for some reason the laptop is not charged. Tsk. So I thought I should create a quick blog entry.
This is really surreal for me. After 2 weeks of being locked up in the house, here I am, outside the confines of our four walls and on the way to some far away land. On top of that, I have a secret I cannot share. Not yet. Maybe not even to this blog. The risks are too much. So I will instead share it to the other space in the web I have. The space that no one knows of except me and the few people who saunters to it.
So I guess I should end this. Then guys at the back of the bus are quite noisy and are severely getting in the way of my thoughts. As such all the words that plague my mind earlier have conveniently disappeared.
I hope to get some rest, whatever form it will take in the next two days. It is no surprise that I am feeling the brunt of my workalcoholism. I feel like a guinea pig running around in its wheel all day long. I am screwed. I am doing what I love yet I’m doing it nonstop to the detriment of other things I also love doing. I wake up daily to write and sleep late still writing. I write all day long. I thought that would be cool but it is not. For the plethora of words I have, writing nonstop is not good. Not good at all. I still crave diversity even if the things I write about are already diverse.
I hope after this week, some change is seen. I know I cannot continue on long like this lest I break down. The guinea pig cannot continue running on the wheel.
That’s it. Time to end this as the battery warning is blinking. No chance risking that the comp shut down and I don’t get to save this. Besides, I think the bus is leaving.
I have had the honor of being a finalist in the 2009 Philippine Blog Awards – a really funny incident for me considering the circumstances of how I was encouraged to make public my otherwise private blog and how I got nominated to the PBA in the first place.
3rd Philippine Blog Awards
I have been blogging since 2005, despite the fact that when it initially became popular in the online community, I had detested it. I have been writing journals since I was a kid – from diaries of daily activities to personal opinions of what is happening around me. I have never published any of this work especially since they are contained in “volumes” of notebooks and were always for my private eyes alone. Yet some twisted part in my brain urged me to publish my thoughts in a blog yet my sense of privacy compelled me to keep it private for a long time.
One day, I was doing a search for information about Mar Roxas. I knew he had a blog I was following for some time yet I lost the link. I was trying to locate it when I encountered a blog which featured news about Mar Roxas. I was shocked at what I read! At first I thought it was true. I had no idea it wasn’t. But when I read the sidebar, I knew I had been goofed. I enjoyed the blog – perusing its other stories and laughing my heart out. I back read each and every entry although it took me days to do so. Eventually I got out of my lurker identity and joined the throngs of commenters in the blog. The response of the blog owner – his hospitality and warm welcome – really amazed me. And it was his blog that urged me to publish my own.
Because of his blog I saw what it would be like to share your thoughts to people – not just keep them for your own. Because of his blog I got a glimpse of what it would be like to have a devoted sea of blog followers even blog pals or friends that can be like another social network in this vast and dynamic world. I now have my own blog pals and my blog stats have increased to numbers I never knew it would reach before – still a humble number compared to what other blogs are receiving but then who’s in a rush?
And so I owe a lot to Good Times Manila. And for that reason I’m rooting for it on the 2009 Blogger’s Choice Special Awards.
Another thing, GTM did for me was to hook me up on Facebook. Facebook to me before was just another fad, a social networking site that everyone was joining but I was too lazy to join to despite the countless invitations I receive from friends. But after GTM said it had a Facebook account, I decided to join. And now my Facebook account had evolved into gargantuan proportions. It had surpassed my Friendster and Multiply accounts of which I use sparingly now. And Facebook, I must say, connected me to more people in my various social networks than the other social networking sites had ever done.
So to Deejay, the maker of GTM, I wish you all the luck – may you win in all 3 categories your blog is nominated for. Good job man!
******
When I made my blog public, I initially lamented at the sparse traffic it was getting. I had views of ony one or two a day, sometimes zero. And I knew that they were most probably my siblings or parents. But then the number started increasing, albeit slowly, as I waded my way unto other blogs and commented on their entries. As time passed, traffic increased yet it had never reached 200 views in a day and the average view per day would be about 20. But I was happy. My blog had been private for so long that these numbers were a welcome change. And people I didn’t even know started commenting and I was glad for that.
Then I encountered the PBA logo on some of the blog sites I went to. I admired those sites and I was happy they got nominated. I wondered when my time would come. Then sudden inspiration hit me – why not enter my blog to the PBA? There’s nothing wrong I presume with nominating yourself. So I did, with some small hope that I would get in but more so with just a happy thought at seeing the logo displayed on my site. I was happy for that.
I didn’t knew I was a finalist till about 2 days after the announcement. Someone made a post in my Facebook Wall congratulating me and someone already commented on it without my knowledge. I then went to my blog, saw another congratulatory comment in one of my posts and so I proceeded to investigate. Indeed I was a finalist. Tears of joy sprang to my eyes. I could hardly believe it.
I wished there was some logo that would announce to the world that I made it; that someone had judged my blog and found it acceptable. One of the reservations I had when I made my blog public was the judgement the public would have on my opinions and views. It took me such a long time to be ready to own up to my opinions and stand up for them. Now I am. I can stand up for what I say here and defend my views, whether popular or not.
I have never considered blogging for any award or recognition. I simply wanted an avenue to vent out all the thoughts crammed in my head. I never even thought of writing to please anyone. And so I am euphoric that my blog got in. To me it somehow validated my worth as a writer; as a blogger. Less than a year after I made my blog public, to receive such commendation is, to me, priceless.
I do not know if I will make it. I hope I do, of course. But I know I am up against really wonderful blogs and I have great respects for them. I know it is a tight competition indeed but as Brilliante Mendoza said in an interview with Yes! Magazine, the artist create his masterpiece not because of the award. The award is just a bonus. He creates the artwork as an expression of his beliefs or his message to the world.
*******
I have received the RSVP invite for the Award’s Night. Although I badly want to go, I’m afraid I may not be able to. For me to attend the event I would be missing two training sessions and since I am just starting, I cannot do that. Also, the trip (expenses, energy) would be too much for me especially in the wake of the recent onslaught of the previous typhoons. I cannot gamble my security at this point.
And so it is with much regret that I won’t be able to attend the said event. I hope next year I get to become a finalist again so I could attend the event. Who knows what direction my blogging activities would take by that time? I plan to also create a number of blogs on other topics; it’s just that I need to find time to do so.
To all the other finalists, good luck to you all and kudos to PBA for a job well done!
In my blogging history, this is yet another milestone, perhaps an achievement in the making. As I have no doubt constantly stated, I love writing. I began doing journals or diaries when I was 10 years old, shortly after I discovered my love for reading. Inspired by the Diary of Anne Frank, I felt compelled to also chronicle my life, no matter how seemingly mundane the daily details were compared to a kid who lived during the war period. And so began my experimentation with writing. Sometimes, I wrote in the vernacular, but mostly in English.
When I was in High School, my diaries took on a new form and became journals. No longer was I writing like one merely stating the details of the day but rather I was chronicling my daily life by writing about my opinions on certain matters, my dissections of my emotions and my observations of the things around me. The entries in my personal journal about personal stuff but were written as if it was being published in a school organ.
College saw me keeping journals in the same manner. I wrote mostly in the English language now. I began playing around with words, making my entries appear poetic and worthy of being read by someone. I have somehow managed to write in a way that if anyone read my journals, they wouldn’t quite pinpoint it to be me, except of course if they see my name in the front cover.
And so I discovered online blogs. At first I was averse to publishing my journals online. I considered it an invasion of my privacy. But sooner or later, I found myself instead of writing in my journal, to be typing away in my blog. Thus, I became a blogger.
That was 4 years ago. I’ve blogged on and off since then, depending on my resources and my moods at the moment. I still kept a written journal for all those years. Now, I still have a written journal, though I must admit I seldom write on it. I have begun blogging more actively, managing to switch from Blogger to Multiply, back to Blogger, and then ending up in WordPress. I have begun infiltrating other blogs and creating cyber friends through these channels. I am now familiar with how blogs are actually run and what widgets or gadgets are best for them. I have also encountered creatively designed blogs and began hoping that mine would one day be as creative as theirs. Most of all, I’ve began promoting my blog. Whereas before, I have kept my blogs a secret, open only to the random person who happened to pass by, now I am actively promoting it, reveling whenever the blog traffic surges or I get a new comment.
I am still a long way off from becoming the blogger I want to be. At one point, I came to doubt my intentions for blogging and have come to almost stopping my – according to some friends – shocking disclosure of my personal life.
The 3rd Philippine Blog Awards
But then writing has been my catharsis, publishing them my satisfaction and receiving comments my joy. Now I have taken blogging to a higher level for myself. I’ve entered the 2009 Philippine Blog Awards believing in that my articles are worthy for the said contest. I may or may not win, but then the mere fact that I’ve joined, consciously, for me goes a long way off.
For someone who’ve always dreamed of seeing her name with her own byline in a magazine or a newspaper, and yet ending up in a job she hates and somehow cannot yet leave, entering the contest is but an attempt at reaching that far-off dream – a dream she still hopes to fulfill.
It seems ideas of what to write about always keep popping in my head. I bet with some formal education on writing, I might be able to develop this talent further. Maybe then this is the direction I’ve been looking for? A career in writing? Of course at this point everything would have to start out as a hobby. Some blog posts here and there and some writings here and there. Bits and pieces of the written me somewhere.
I know I would have to develop some individual style of writing. Discover what area or aspect of literature I’m good at writing at. And where could I begin exploring that if not by blogging?
And I am indeed grateful that this laptop has finally served the purpose I had envisioned it to serve. Which to as a writing portal. A writing medium. Now I am fulfilling that dream of directly typing in my thoughts to cyber world. Of course there are times when I miss my volumes of journals which I believe are gathering mold somewhere in my drawers. Yet I know that for the longest time I’ve wished for a scenario exactly like this. A laptop in my lap and my fingers busily typing in my thoughts which are faster than I can recover.
And now what are my topics for today? I’ve thought of some blog ideas like how SM’s opening day was greeted by a storm – a literal weather storm and how irrational my position and a friend’s position is when it comes to love or what we allude to as love lives. And then of course there are the many reviews I’ve lined up that I still can’t get around to writing. And now I’ve managed to come up with some idea for a blog – a blog that I could actually publish.
One idea is to have Cuddle and Cuchie as the “bloggers” and for them to act like columnists who answers people’s biological queries. One idea is to simply write about biological entities – in a really unscientific and layman sort of way. Just so I could still make use of my Bio education. Another, and this just came to mind, is to write about the adventures of a Bio student – what it feels to dissect things etc. Then again another idea is to publish the blog I have now and to make my profile and other incriminating information anonymous so I could pass the blog on as some diary of some hapless soul in the universe who is sometimes happy and sometimes sad. A very normal individual who simply wants the world to listen to her life struggles. And maybe I could make an alter ego of myself though I still haven’t decided how to go about with that.
Maybe I could also write about the struggles of a TSR yet at one point or another that line of writing will most probably end since my being a TSR isn’t really that interesting. I could cook up a lot of anecdotes from my calls but they won’t be enough to sustain a blog.
The most probable here is the one wherein I would simply remove all incriminating posts in my blog so it would reflect no personal detail about me but all details about my life. and the one about Bio concepts explained in layman’s terms. The others might be simply too much work.
And of course we cannot write about things we do not know right? So I cannot write about travels and food trips which are two subjects I would have loved to write about. I need to gain a certain degree of experience for those things to be the subject of my writings.
Maybe then time will come when I could write about this things and when that time comes I know I’m no longer as tied down to this binding kind of work that I have. And when would that happen? In two or three years time maybe? Hopefully.
a while back i was itching to write about my topsy-turvy sentiments. now i can’t find the words to voice out my thoughts.
in less than 10 minutes i should be back at my station. i haven’t even eaten a morsel of my choco chip cookies. yet my mind wants to vent out whatever emotion it is keeping at bay. it seems i want to release something. yet i cannot. not at this instant.
it seems they’re all there — at bay. awaiting release.
why won’t release come? *sigh*
maybe hunger pangs is dulling my brain. silencing both the cerebrum and the hypothalamus.
