For today, the Why Do I Blog? meme from Strawberry Singh.   I haven’t been blogging Second Life for very long at all, so these probably will be more relevant to my primary Tumblr blog, which is my main focus and not SL related at all (well, sometimes I cross post).  But interesting questions!  For once I’m typing mine up before I follow the comment links, so I’m looking forward to seeing the other answers.

1. How long have you been blogging? I think the first time I started an actual blog was in 2009 but didn’t stick with it very long because I didn’t know what to do with it. Sometime in early 2011 I began to pick up on things a bit more, so a couple of years now.

2. Why did you start blogging? I wanted to chatter and was constantly bugging my husband with thoughts on one thing or another, and eventually he started suggesting why don’t you blog that?  I always liked to write, so I thought maybe blogging would be a good way for me to get into a habit of writing every day. My only trouble originally was I didn’t know what I wanted to blog about, but eventually I found a niche and kept going.

3. How many times a week do you post an entry? Here: lately just once a week as I’m doing the blogging memes. Tumblr: several times a day.

4. How many different blogs do you read on a regular basis? A lot, really. I agree with Strawberry that reading blogs has taken up a lot of time that used to be spent reading books (I’m a little upset with myself about that sometimes.) There are several SL blogs I check daily, some tech/news blogs I try to keep up with, and some pagan-focused blogs I enjoy. I follow most of these with Reader, but I still almost always go to the blog itself to catch up, rather than read the RSS feed. And there’s always all the Tumblr blogs I follow that stream across my dash.

5. Do you comment on other people’s blogs? Sometimes, and I always intend to leave them more often, but  I usually have no idea what to say in comments.  I’ll write and rewrite and rewrite again and often decide it was a stupid comment, so I ultimately give up and abandon it entirely.  I am really trying to get past this habit because I want to let people know I enjoy what they’re posting.

6. Do you keep track of how many visitors you have? I have stat counters on a couple of my Tumblrs and like to see what keyword searches brought people in, or where in the world they are. I haven’t tracked my SL blog yet, because it’s so new, and I’m focused on it as just being something fun for me to do rather than one that I am trying to build a big audience for.

7. Did you ever regret a post that you wrote? No, but I’m not too likely to blog anything that would be regrettable anyway.

8. Do you think your readers have a true sense of who you are based on your blog? From this one, well maybe, reading these blog memes.  Or at least they’ll have some sense of how I approach blogging and/or Second Life.  From the primary Tumblr, yes possibly, because I occasionally put up chatty posts, or just talk back and forth with other bloggers. At the very least it’s pretty obvious what my interests are from scanning that blog.

9. Do you blog under your real name? For the most part, even on my RL blogs, I don’ really have my name on them. My first name on some, but not my full name.  This one I just have an avatar name listed.

10. Are there topics that you would never blog about? I’m mostly enjoying this as an outlet for fun and sharing images and being rather lighthearted, so it’s not too likely that I will ever blog anything controversial, at least not intentionally.

11. What is the theme/topic of your blog? Well it seems to be blog memes right now, doesn’t it? 🙂 On the whole though, I would say it’s just to share things I see/do in SL that I think are fun. I love fashion blogs and read some of the feeds, but I’m not really interested in being a fashion blog because I don’t think I have the patience or the attention to detail to review anything. I do sometimes wonder if I should be putting style credits on my posts, I’ve not done that in the past because I didn’t want to look like I was trying to be a fashion blogger, but maybe someone would be interested. *ponders*

12 Do you have more than one blog? If so, why? Oh… bunches!  For SL I have two: This, and it’s mirror image on Tumblr.  Non SL:  my primary blog at Tumblr is for being a hopeless fangirl and sharing pics, music I love, silly things, cute baby animal gifs, and generally being rambly or chatty, and it’s the blog I most identify with. Another Tumblr serves as a storage area for the concert-clip gifs I make. Two for my RL photography (1 on Tumblr, 1 on word press that is new and mostly unused so far). One that is on hold now, that featured my Sims2 adventures. Two blogs that I co-run with a friend. Two more that I hold on to and use sometimes, but no one is aware of them. Whew. *counts* So that’s eleven. Oh my God. I’m not sure how I feel about myself now xD

13. What have you found to be the benefits of blogging? I have made some really nice friends that I would have never met had I not started blogging in some form, so that has been the best thing 🙂 But mostly, it’s just fun. I enjoy it, it gives me something to do, and places to get my thoughts out.

14. So, why do you continue to blog? Given the nature of my blogs I think the answer is best summed up as it’s my way of saying: “Hey! This thing! I like it a lot! Let me show it to you and talk about it! Look!”