when was blogging?

As no doubt is becoming clear, I'm blogging less and less, partly because moving interstate along with everything else I do is making me that much more busy, partly because I'm, er, running out of things to say, in a certain sense. And the View was intended as an Alice-specific blog. 

I always wondered when I would want to finish this blog, and I thought I would know when the time came, much as how I thought I would know when to move on from Alice and where I would go next. Now it seems the time is a-coming. It's not a recent decision, but something I've been pondering over the last six months (so don't worry that you've said anything to put me off blogging).

I've pondered starting a Melbourne blog -- maybe titled 'Northcoto-philia', or 'too much information' or 'permanent wedgie' (my usual state of being) -- but I'm not sure that yet another Melbourne blog is needed, when there are so many already and so many that are well done. But when was a blog ever necessary?

 And besides, what would I say? 'Melbourne's getting big. Hoddle St's even busier. Brunswick's all joozied up these days.' All this small-town-girl-in-the-big-smoke-wonderment could get monotonous.

I do remember the days when blogging had a raffish edge, maybe back around 2005 when there was a lot of energy in the Australian blogosphere. Barista has suggested to me that it was because blogging afforded an avenue of comment during the dark Howard years, when mainstream journalism became increasingly conservative. I'm not entirely sure that I agree with this summation, as there's always been a strong, personal diaristic strand in the blogosphere as well as a political one. I've sometimes thought that blogging was a bit like the outburst of small presses in the seventies when self-publishing became easier: perhaps there are always wannabee writers and pamphleteers about, looking for a suitable platform.  Back in the good ol' days of the early noughties, blogging was a slightly eccentric thing to do; now it's been banalised to a 'tool' used regularly by journalists and management types (curses!) Facebook and Twitter have also no doubt leached bloggers and potential bloggers away, which is perhaps not such a bad thing: how much bad prose do we really need cluttering up the internet?  Laura and I have both commented that thoughts we would previously have given fuller expression in a blog post often just get a one-sentence wrap-up on FB these days.

Good things have come out of blogging and even FB for me.  I never had any idea where blogging might take me, and like much of life, the unexpected was far more interesting than anything I could have imagined. I've met and started new networks of interesting people.  I've had writing from the blog re-published or linked elsewhere, and other pieces commissioned by good quality publications. Another truly pleasant aspect of blogging and also FB has been the people who have come out of the wordwork (i.e. readers/lurkers) since I've returned to Melbourne, and re-introduced themselves to me: in some cases, it's been up to fifteen years since I've seen them.

I don't want to can this blog, entirely, (so if anyone has any bright ideas about how I can archive it, rather than paying typepad forever, do tell). The blog has been important to me as a record of my time in central Australia, which is why I originally started it, not to mention of my Charles Ryder-ish descent into middle age and of Leonard's decline and ultimate demise. Another trajectory this blog has covered has been my journey to becoming a writer, though I still feel nervous about making that claim. It's interesting to me that at a certain point, people started to call me a writer, rather me calling myself one. I don't think this shift is associated with the very small critical mass of journal publications I've had: I suspect it's more my commitment to the pursuit of writing. I see writing probably more as a vocation than a career; after all, very few people support themselves entirely on the basis of writing, tho there's a sense in which I still use writing as my basic tool of trade in my capacity as a policy wonk. The dilemmas of not defining oneself in terms of work or career, not to mention not defining oneself as a woman in terms of family or relationships can be truly tiresome. Ditto to the notions that pursuing a life in the arts necessarily means impoverishment or that it's ok for creative labour to be unpaid. However, I won't whinge about these issues here yet again, especially when others have done so ably over here.

Otherwise, my feet have fallen in pleasant places. I live in a tiny eyrie almost overlooking Merri Creek, slightly smaller than the upper storey of my last abode, but as it only takes 45 mins to clean and it's only five mins walk to High Street, 10 minutes to Clifton Hill or Nth Fitzroy, I'm not complaining. Even tho winter is virtually upon us, Melbourne is still looking very Autumnal. I wouldn't say European, tho sometimes it's difficult to spot the gumtree in these parts: just cold, in a southern temperate climes kinda way, like Hobart and Christchurch.

All good things come to the end and this is the beginning of the end (I really will leave the blogosphere soon, I promise).

Comments

[craftydabbler]

I have enjoyed reading your blog since about 2006, if I remember right. What you have shared here has widened my horizons, and I appreciate it. I will miss you and your writing.

[the L-girl]

I was late to your blogs but have been inspired by them and your ability to be brave enough to put your thoughts out there especially about Central Australia - always so controversial whatever way you view it. But I'm enjoying the Melbourne cafe stories too.

[Stephanie]

Never say never! I'm certainly keeping you on my blogroll and will check back in regularly, just in case. And ... isn't there an argument for keeping up the discussion of indigenous issues in the city too? But yeah, the blogging impulse is an irregular and unpredictable one: I do get that.

[elsewhere]

Thanks, everyone. Part of the problem is that I do so much at the computer anyway, so I feel something has to go before my eyes or my neck give way.

Yes, there is an argument for discussion of urban Indigenous issues tho I don't know that I'm the one to do it. Just a tad weary of the whole area and tempted to be overly cynical about certain things, like the overemphasis on semantics and the feeling I get sometimes that things in the city are more about the politics between certain factions and organisations than anything else, tho that could quite possibly said by an outsider looking at Alice too.

But it is possible that I could start a new blog altogether, so stay tuned. Or write the occasional blogpost in facebook.

[tigtog]

El, you should be able to export your blog from Typepad and then import it to either Blogspot or wordpress.com as a free platform - I definitely think you should archive it!

[Ian]

Thanks for the years of interesting viewpoints. Best wishes for the future... I too shall keep you on my blogroll... jic :-)

Regards, Ian.

[suze]

Yes, as you know I don't blog any more though a very interesting thing happened to me recently - one of the people whose dog I'd adopted found me through the blog which still sits in cyberspace and we met, a very emotional meeting for us both. I've had two blogging incarnations (well, three if you count LP, which I should); the second was for a specific time abroad. I loved doing that blog, with its very concise purpose. Recently I toyed with the idea of doing a specific health blog, but the health impairment somewhat precludes that ;-) (Yes, doing all this computer work is not good for the middle-aging body.) Reading back over my blog, I'm very glad to have written it and hypothetically I'd love to still be doing it but ... the zeitgeist has changed.

[ampersand duck]

I agree with lots that has been said here: transfer over to a free blog and keep it archived that way; I'm not taking you off the blogroll either, just in case :); and thank you for all the quality reading! (And a new friend or two!)

Would be lovely if you could think up a new blogging motivation, but I guess FB is a good alternative.

[elsewhere]

Well, it looks like wordpress or something like that, when I have a spare moment. Genevieve -- i was sorta sitting on the offer, trying to configure it in my mind, but I probably will look at a free-blogging platform.

If/when I move, I'll post links, etc.

I think that with the 0.8 job, the script and the book, I spend more than enough time at the computer, for any aging body (physios are never impressed). I've thought of short-blogging -- random thoughts of about 100 words, but might as well use FB for that.

Like the dog story, Suze!

[Zoe]

You should ask the Pandora archive at the National Library to archive the blog. Then you don't have to worry or maintain it.

I hope you do keep blogging, somewhere or other about whatever.