Blogiversary PS

I came across this comment at Historiological Notes, made by a certain Sharon on 16 June.

I’m contemplating starting a blog to go with my Early Modern Resources site (www.earlymodernweb.org) – perhaps mainly for adding new links so that they don’t simply get lost in my bookmarks files before they can be put on the website proper, perhaps something more than that. I don’t know if I have time to become a serious blogger! I like varied blogs, by the way. And ones that generate interesting discussions without taking themselves too seriously all the time…

There should be a warning on Blogger (just after the bit where it says: set up a blog in 5 minutes, it’s really easy!): BLOGGING IS ADDICTIVE. IT WILL SUCK YOU IN. YOU WILL NEVER ESCAPE.

Scrolled down a bit further. Sharon added on 26 June:

Update: I went ahead and made the blog: http://www.earlymodernweb.blogspot.com/

And it’s cool, really cool. (Except that I now have to learn to ration the time I give it so that I GET SOME WORK DONE.) I can do all sorts of news-type stuff for early modernists that I couldn’t put on my web site because I didn’t have time to update it every week; I can have a good rant (or a laff); I can try out bits of writing… though I don’t know yet how much of it will be serious or historiographical. That takes some brain work, after all. :~) But I would like it to be a good history-focused blog rather than personal ramblings. (Don’t get me wrong, there are many ‘personal’ blogs that I like a lot, and all good blogs should be personalised. That’s part of the appeal.) Without getting too pompous, I want to lead by example here. (Yeah, that was still a bit pompous, wasn’t it?)

I’m just amazed at all the possibilities that keep opening up. … But it probably will take time to get the word out more widely. I previously saw blogs as really just personal/political diaries, not ‘real’ academic tools – and I’ve been championing the internet for historians for over 4 years!

The post and the subsequent discussion is worth re-reading, by the way. Interesting (well, to me) how my blogging ‘philosophy’ was substantially in place within 10 days of opening for business. And, in a way, my personal answer to the discussions of academic women blogging: don’t just talk about it, do it. Show that it can be done, for anyone (female or male) worrying over whether to try, and how. Make it as good as you can. Express opinions (and be prepared to defend them). Have fun in the process.

It never occurred to me to blog pseudonymously or about my personal life. In any case, I still wouldn’t know what to say, except sometimes about cooking, if that counts as personal (I’m deeply jealous of the personal bloggers who have interesting lives to write about!), whereas I think that doing history is fascinating enough to write about whether anybody reads it or not. This blog was always going to be an extension to my existing online presence, which was ‘professional’ (as an academic resource site) and named from the beginning. So, anyway, it just never occurred to me, either, that there might be anything to worry about in doing it that way, as a woman, or as a starting-out academic, or any other of the many social categories to which I might belong.

Recently, profgrrl asked her readers a set of questions about why and how they blog (or don’t, even). A lot of people responded (though I forgot, I think…). We’re a garrulous lot by definition really: it isn’t hard to get us to open up and talk about why we do this, so I wish more people would actually do stuff like that before they start proposing grand unified theories of gender and blogging. So that’s my recommended post for weekend reading. And feel welcome to add your thoughts here.