I’ve blogged before, on different topics, in different communities. Sometimes I post once in a blue moon, other times I post so much I bore myself. My interaction with a community varies tremendously by how I am feeling — I don’t mean on a day to day basis, more like quarter by quarter. Given that none of my previous blogs have been what I would call a rousing success, why on earth am I starting another one, on a new system, and with intentions to interact with a different community? I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a fader, and that chances are that I won’t keep up with this either. But at least there are good reasons to try:
1) Crafting is a big part of my life right now and I want to give it even more prominence. I’m sick of talking about being sick, and tired of being too tired to do anything. I want to try to push myself to do more creatively.
2) My writing needs work. I think it’s a use it or lose it skill and over the years, especially the ones where I was unable to type much, I think I have lost a lot of it. I want it back. I also want bak the brainpower that comes with pondering issues, puzzling out problems and more importantly for this blog, explaining the end results. I need to engage the verbal part of my brain on a regular basis and I think that tying it to another creative process (in this case, crafting) might help.
3) I want to give back to the community that inspires me and also to get to know more people. This is probably the hardest for me to do as I go through long stretches of just not wanting to deal with people or having a hard time communicating. I’m in the latter now but I want to see if I can inspire my way out of it.
I know that being accepted into a community requires a lot of reciprocation on my part — you have to write regularly and comment often to be in people’s field of vision. I also know that I have failed in this numerous times. So right now I’m not going to really tell anyone about this blog or make my blogroll public until I am sure that I can keep things up. There will always be some down/away periods and there’s nothing I can do about that. But I don’t like raising people’s expectations and then being unable to deliver.