Ten years ago, almost on this very day, I wrote a letter to a guy named Aaron who lived in Nebraska and wrote a weblog (yes, I know, “weblog.” It was only 2002, so that’s what we called blogs).
Like hearing a recording of your own voice, it’s a little hard for me to read the silly email I wrote him. (It’s at the end of this post, if you’re interested.) I emailed him because I felt like I knew him after reading his blog every day.
I also wrote him because I was totally intrigued with the idea of blogging. Back then, friends teased me about how I loved weblogs and how I considered total strangers my friends.
I kept reading blogs until three years ago when I started this one. My goal with this blog was to preserve pictures and memories of our growing family—mostly because I couldn’t remember ANYTHING at the end of the day.
Over the past 600 some posts, this space has totally fulfilled that purpose. At Christmas I order M a book of the year’s blog posts because it’s such a nice alternative to making him a scrapbook. Which, ugh, obviously it is. Can you imagine having time to make a scrapbook?
But something else has happened in the midst of all these daily posts…I’ve fallen in love with writing for a live audience.
Don’t get me wrong, I love writing books because I really enjoy the research and the editing and the process.
But in so many ways, blogging is more fun because it’s not researched or a process—it’s real and real-time. Books take so long to be published. By the time they’re in print, the author has moved on and forgotten a lot of details of the book.
But blogging?
Instant feedback. Instant dialogue.
Because of all this, I’m currently loving blogging more than writing books. Which is a problem since I need to make some progress on my current book. This weekend I had time to work on it, instead I played around with Photoshop, read blogs, and blogged.
And I’m glad I did. I wrote an entry about my friend, Marco, who passed last week. Last night his widow commented on the post. Thank you, Lord, for leading her to it and for whatever comfort it gave her.
Here’s another crazy part of blogging: it’s easy to make blog friends. When I read Chelsea’s blog yesterday, (you should read it; it’s spot-on) I realized I had made a friend through my blog (Hi, Molly). Technically, I made a friend through Chelsea, but a person I had never met in real life read bestoftimes!
So, yea for blogs! Yea for instant communication and blog friends! Yea for you for reading my silly stories and letting me share my pictures.
Yea for this is totally what I want to do the rest of my life!
Oh, and here’s that awkward email…a response I wrote to him when he asked, “Why do you come to this site?”
I deleted his email address out of courtesy. Although I’m pretty sure none of you planned to google him and stalk him about his weblog 10 years ago.
—– Original Message —–
From: Christina Hergenrader
To: agra
Sent: Monday, November 11, 2002 8:57 AM
Subject: Why do you come to this site?
Hi Aaron-
I’m an author and when my husband leaves for work at 7:30, our house gets pretty quiet. My morning ritual is to feed our dogs, make coffee and read the three weblogs that I follow.
I follow your weblog because reading how you communicate with the world stimulates my own writing. When I’m alone in front of my computer all day, I need to see how someone else is perceiving and summarizing our society.
I also like your pictures. And hearing about life in Nebraska. My husband and I went to school up there and we travel to the midwest to spend holidays with his family in Lincoln and mine in Kansas City.
Thanks for what you post. I can’t direct you to my website because I don’t have one. My first two books (YA fiction) will be published in June and two more will follow soon after. I guess until then I can empathize with your feeling what you write exists in a vacuum. But hopefully this gives you some insight of how one of your 4900 websurfers enjoys the daily glimpse into your world.
THE Tina mentioned me in a post (!!!!!) 🙂
Yay blogs! (I feel like my worlds are colliding right now…)
I like reading your blog to see if my name is mentioned. Which happens rather infrequently….and now I notice your pretend, online friends are getting more attention?! Hrrrmmph. Perhaps a 5-night Disney vacation will remedy this!! XOXO. Don’t forget to send in the rent $$ first week in December.