To blog, or not to blog?

Picture: Sandi Schultz (on the right) and I, in Belhar, a northen suburb of Cape Town, in 1992!

When I first encountered anything close to blogging, it was in 1998, when I visited my friend, Sandi Schultz, in Los Angeles. She showed me what was then her website: www.cybersass.com. I was fascinated, because my talented, creative friend had found a way to get her writing, her drawings and her opinions - in fact, any information she wanted to share - out to the whole world. I marvelled at the way she'd set it up and how she'd placed different things into sections, like a newsletter. There was a serious side to it, as well, because she'd found a way to get website info to people who'd been sexually assaulted.

More recently, she's started working on a whole website dedicated to this issue. You can look out for www.isaidno.co.za - keep checking to see when it's up and running.

And then in about Sept/Oct 2008, I did some life coaching sessions with Gopal Ramasammy-Cook (www.zestware.com), during which he asked if I'd ever thought of starting a blog, since I liked writing/journalling so much. I felt like I was in a time-warp, but I had to ask: "What's a blog?"

When I came back from my 2-week trip to Brazil in April 2009, I wrote a long letter to all my overseas friends, describing the trip in great detail. After reading it, Sandi wrote to me, saying how much she'd enjoyed it and added, "You really need to start blogging!"

I suppose I'm just one of those people who have to hear something more than once before I act! :-)

And so I Googled "blogging", found a few options, and set one up, all on my own. In fact, setting up a blog is really easy. They take you through all the steps very clearly, and you can't go wrong. There's always the Help button if you get stuck, otherwise it's fairly simple, once you get going.

I loved the absolute freedom of choice when it came to what I'd call my blog. I felt so proud when I'd set it up and there it was...... my very own creation! With my own name and my own password! Like a blank book I could fill with my words any time I wanted to. What an incredible legacy!

I must admit I was very naive when I started, because I thought my blog would be read by people I knew, but it soon became obvious that a lot more than my 10 "followers" actually read what I wrote. I'd meet friends of friends who'd say, "I always read your blog. I really liked what you wrote about...". Gulp!

I suppose in every aspect of our lives, there are times when we question whether the decision or path we took was the right one, and for me it's the same with what I blog about. In what seems like a previous life, I was told that the songs I wrote were "too personal" to sing in public, and yet when I found the courage to perform them at shows, people would come up to me and say how strongly they could relate to what I had written. I came to accept that many of us who write (whether articles, blogs, poems, books or songs) actually articulate what many others feel but can't write. I've had so many women come up to me and say, "The same thing happened to me, but I could never have put it into words like you did." The fact that my songs usually rhyme and often contain humour, makes it even more surprising that certain serious topics find their way into my music.

Recently I took a look at how far across the globe my blog was being read (I LOVE statistics!) and I had a panic attack - are my posts "too personal"? Should I be more cryptic? Should I consciously NOT wear my heart on my sleeve? When I uploaded my first-ever song on the internet, 11 days ago, I went through the same thing. You feel really exposed, really out there, open to criticism.

But I'm an artist. I write, I sing, I play my guitar. I compose music. My lyrics are raw and real, because I write as I experience life. I write as I observe life happening to people around me. Like many artists, I've fallen in and out of love so many times, I sometimes can't tell fact from fantasy. And so I write. I merge the two worlds to the extent where I sometimes dread being asked about my lyrics, because I might feel I have to answer .... and of course I'd answer truthfully.

But I'm a compulsive writer. Before I go to sleep each night, I write. I sometimes fall alseep with my pen in my hand and my journal open next to me, the last word I wrote morphing into hieroglyphics.

And so I suppose, for me, the answer to that question, "To blog or not to blog?", is crystal clear: for as long as I'm able to use my brain and hands this way, I will most definitely be blogging.