Wearing my Blogrhet cap today

In an attempt to jump start my 'little grey cells' again, I joined the bloggy think tank of intellectually supercharged (excepting myself) ladies over here at Blogrhet. To quote its founders: "We are a team of bloggers who are fascinated with what blogging means to each of us...We are prone to navel-gazy "what does it all mean?" posts that reflect on our own processes of blogging, writing, and interacting. And we know were not alone. Starting this week, BlogRhet will be back in action with regular posts from bloggers like you. To get this introspective party started, we're enlisting your help with this meme. Your mission: Give these questions a stab in a post, and then tag three more writers. If you don't mind, please link back to this original entry—we'd LOVE to track the progress of this meme with trackbacks." 1. Go back to first or early post. How would you describe your voice back in those early days?Who were you writing to? What was your sense of audience (if any) back then? I do not think my writing voice has changed all that much, to be honest. Then again, I've been writing for so long now, in various forms, that perhaps I'd already come to a style that I was comfortable with. Do I amend what I might say as opposed to what I do say, however? Yes, sometimes. I think. I believe that blogging falls in a grey area when it comes to categorisation. Its a bit of memoir; it's a bit of reporting; it's a bit of fiction; plus others. So what I say I am achieving here, or trying to achieve, the next person might say is bollocks and not worth the effort. The writerly 'voice' here is my own, but is a lot different to 'SERIOUS ARTISTE' which I (in the old days) used to adopt. It's an easier one, granted. But is it 'better'? That is a question I've begun to ask myself actually, because my other kinds of writing are suffering. 2. Do you remember when you received your first comment? What was it like? Ah - comments. The bait which keep many people still blogging. Seriously, I ask you, if there were no such thing as comment availability in blogging, would you keep on writing? I would, but I guarantee you, a good percentage of others wouldn't. Old friends and old acquaintances were my first commenter's, for which I am grateful. My sister, too, pops up regularly. I was talking about this with a fellow mother blogger (well, mother-to-be, in her case!) the other night at the Melbourne Bloggers Meetup. We partially started our blogs as a means to keep family informed as to what was happening in our lives; and our families (by and large) ignore them. Which is a generational issue, I stress, than a lack of interest or love on their part. My take on comments is funny. I don't post comments nearly as much as others do. But then, I only do if I have something unique or of newer value to add to a discussion. If what I was to say didn't classify, then frankly I refer to myself as a spammer commenter.... ...which I freely admit sometimes I tend to be on Thursday Thirteens. There, chew on that! God, I need to make a decision there.... 3. Can you point to a stage where you began to feel that your blog might be part of a conversation? Where you might be part of a larger community of interacting writers? Oh, I know when. Exactly. Here The idea took off so quickly, before I realised the extent of 'memes' or 'competitions' which clogged up the bloggersphere. Back then, maybe, I was slightly naive, so I thought I was doing something unique and luckily for me, the idea took off. Would it now? Maybe not. You've got to remember, I offered no monetary or prize incentive to 'join'. Only a link. And a button. That's all. What's with the (bribing? is that too hard a word?) going on now? Bloggers are offering all sorts of treats to entice you to participate in their blog community. I'm not criticising here - I'm not! - but I can't do that, really. 1) No money 2) Being an 'international' blogger (it really is a case of USA vs the rest of us) it would be hard to organise anything without coming across postage red tape. etcetc. Okay, so back to the question. I think I answered it! Except to add, that the 2nd of my own challenges, the Hello, Gorgeous Project, was a relative disaster, and I cannot say why. That can wait for another time. 4. Do you think that this sense of audience or community might have affected the way you began to write? Hmmm...well assuming that the big traffic numbers I got when the project was in full swing (plus other times I've been featured on Problogger) continued to grow exponentially (they didn't), (although I am doing okay in that respect), short answer is no, I haven't changed. I think that's because of the reasons I go into in question one Like these answers? Want to see more? Go here! I am supposed to tag three people. I can't think of three people who'd like to do it (or at least are too shy to say so!). Please, go ahead. It's open to everyone!