Why I like blogging, #389

One thing I really like about blogs is how it is so easy for a relative nobody newbie like me to read, and maybe even directly communicate with, established bloggers like Rebecca Blood and Jessamyn West. I would never have considered emailing people just to say hi, I love your work because I would have thought I was being too intrusive and fanboi. (I have to have a reason to email people; emailing someone I have never met, just to gush, feels unseemly.) If they have a blog, on the other hand, I can comment, agree/disagree… discuss, converse. (Uh oh, you’re thinking: yet another CW Hearts Blogs post… but I’m sure you worked this out a few posts back.)

Recently I started playing on a new Six Apart blogging site, Vox. (Thanks again for the invite, Morgan!). It’s an interesting concept, allowing a blogger to tag some posts as viewable by friends only, some family only, or friends and family only or viewable by the world (public). I’ve noticed that many of the cool kids seem to be playing there at the moment. You can tag people as being in your neighbourhood – it allows you to see when they’ve updated their Vox blogs – and I’ve now got famous (to me) people (Jessamyn, Rebecca) in my neighbourhood!

[I also get a thrill when I find blogs by published writers whose work I’ve enjoyed – recently found Glenda Larke’s blog, and I have been reading Justine Larbalestier‘s and Robert J Sawyer‘s blogs for some time now. I wonder which other authors blog. (Writers’ blogs I’d love to read: Ursula LeGuin, Vernor Vinge, Iain M Banks, Peter Temple, Carol Berg, Henning Mankell – although he would probably blog in Swedish – A. Samad Said, Khadijah Hashim…) ]

The only thing that is a bit of a pain on Vox is that you need to have a Vox account to be able to comment (but I suppose this will stymie spammers). If you’d like a Vox account please leave a comment here. At this stage I can only give you a so-called starter account, which allows you to set a profile and write comments. (Standard accounts allow you to blog as well; I don’t have any invites for standard accounts yet.)

Categories: blogging, fan, Vox