Start off small. I used to have a blog on Journalspace, back when blogs were first starting to break it big. In my opinion I thought I did pretty well! I only started keeping it because my friends did, and we just used to talk about little things that happened and gigs we were going to and stuff. I got into it a little bit more than my friends, and at one point I was getting a pretty good daily hit count! Honestly, my little experiences even made the local paper! Leicester Mercury, Feb 11th 2006 - Look:
Not sure where they got the name "Distilled Space".
Anyway, I think what brought people back was that about 2 weeks after I started the blog, my sister was diagnosed with cancer. The blog became a diary of what it was to be 16 and having a family dealing with a chronically ill younger sibling. The blog basically became about that, about me being angry and scared, and how my family coped and how I tried to cope, about the sacrifices we all made and with my life strewn liberally in between. Thing was, when Kate was declared in remission I kinda lost contact with the blog and I stopped posting. I became one of those guys who blogs only to tell people "Sorry I've not been posting, been totally busy. I'll tell you later. Bye".
However, my interest in online communities stayed. I got into online gaming and when I was at University started perusing blogs again. I didn't start one myself as I didn't feel like I had the time, although I wish I had, I think I would have benefitted from 3rd party input to tell me how much of a dick I was being in certain situations. Still, shouldawouldacoulda. Anyway, riding on the back of this interest my Masters dissertation was on Blogging and Online Identities - I discussed how bloggers create an online identity which is seperate from their real identity, totally incorporeal and therefore without boundaries. In my eyes it was interesting stuff, in the eyes of the examiner it was toilet paper. To be honest, it probably was pure bilge, I was trying to hold down a full time job and write a postgraduate dissertation at the same time and it probably wasn't working.
After this I decided to pick up my journalspace blog again and see where I could go with it. Unfortunately, JS had been taken over by some evil overlords or something and everything I had written over those years had poofed out of existence. It was kind of a blow really, it was a relic of a particularly emotionally charged time of my life.
So, my life isn't totally devoid of bloguration. I have blogged before! And I shall blog again! Help me blog viewers, I am awash in a sea which I'm supposed to understand! To a level at which I should be able to write a paper which could hold up to a review by my peers! Help!
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