What's a blog, I wondered.
It was 28 November 2004. I was visiting Boston staying with the couple with whom I lived with for years in the same house we had owned together. I was there for Christmas. Having retired, I didn't have to worry about getting back to work.
I read about them and set one up, calling it the https://theexpatwriter.blogspot.com/ Afterall, I was an expat and I was a writer about to publish my first novel: Chickpea Lover: Not a Cookbook.
The subject of my first blog?
The Christmas crazies and buying frenzies.
In the 19+ years until the end of last year, I've written 4,670 blogs.
My blog is eclectic: personal observations, politics, recipes, short stories, serializing my 17th novel, flash fiction, poetry, whatever fits my fancy. I use it as a writing warm up many days.
There were happy blogs and sad blogs, like when my brother died. That had a happy outcome. My ex-sister-in-law left a comment. I had lost touch with her and we reconnected after years and years. What a relief to know she had a happy life.
When a beloved teacher died, I wrote about how much he meant to me. He was a major influence in my life. His son responded in a comment that made me choke down sobs.
I created another blog that included my writing newsletter W3 http://wisewordsonwriting.blogspot.com which was picked up by a now defunct British writing magazine.
My mother, also a writer had written a cookbook. She died before she could get it published. Stove Stories tells the history of some of the recipes. http://stovestories.blogspot.com/ was the blog I created to make sure her work did not totally disappear. I also have a reference when I want to cook something from my childhood.
When I developed breast cancer, I cerated another blog. http://thebreastisyettocome.blogspot.com/ I later turned it into a book The Cockeyed Nipple as a give away to Geneva women going through the same thing in a country that was strange to them and in a strange language.
A friend turned up after decades of no contact, As Charlotte Bronte wrote in Jane Eyre wrote, "Reader, I married him."
He developed his own blog https://lovinglifeineurope.blogspot.com/ and sometimes we do duelling blogs on the same subject.
When I met him at the train station one time after a business trip, I asked him how it went. "Read my blog," he said.
Other friends have started blogs. Some no longer write them and I miss them. Others have kept writing and I enjoy reading them.
My readership?
It can been anything from two to four digits for a total of and had 762121 hits as of today. I haven't been able to determine which topics bring in the most readers. I'm sure if I weren't eclectic, I could have a greater readership ... or not.
For me writing is almost an addiction. Words, sentences, paragraphs and stories are almost always bouncing around in my head. Blogging is certainly less expensive than pills and psychiatry.
Tomorrow and later this week, I'll return to serializing my 17th novel Lexington: Anatomy of a Novel and who know what else will catch my fancy.
Check out my website: dlnelsonwriter.com
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