Wednesday, August 24, 2011

How did you find blogging?

My entire life I have kept a diary. I can remember the little pink diary I had in first grade that had the little lock on it that I got for my birthday. I wrote all my secrets in there. Stuff like, "My mom made me so mad today, she wouldn't let me watch _____!" Yeah, 6-year-old irritations like that.

After that, with each age and grade level, it progressed to writing about crushes, fights with friends, more fights with parents (normal stuff, don't worry) and sisterly love/hate woes. I really wish I had all of those diaries still. I remember still having a journal in college - one that you wrote in! Oh, how it is probably a good that thing is not around anymore...

So, basically you could say that I have kept some sort of journal or account of my life since the moment I could string a sentence together. (It is heartbreaking that I do not have them all anymore).

Blogging happened for me almost exactly 4 years ago. I had just moved back to Iowa from South Carolina and I was unemployed, living on vacation money and savings and bored. I was out of work for about a month and I was so, so bored. My friends began to call me the lady who "lunches" because I was constantly meeting friends for the lunch breaks.

Luckily, I had the internet. But, honestly, I cannot remember what I did on the internet before blogging ... MySpace? Ebay? Shopping? God knows I can shop on line... I am very good at that.

In October of 2007 I must have been really bored (or perhaps inspired?). I had just finished a book and was reading the about the author section. She had a blog, so I immediately went to the internet and found it. This was before I even really know what blog meant. After reading through her blog, I clicked a comment from that blog and got to another person's blog. That was the bug that bit me.

After that I was hooked. The author blog that I found was Karyn Bosnak after reading 20 Times a Lady. She was so witty and funny, I couldn't help but check her blog several times a day to see if she had posted. The commenter that I found was Lesli at Pretty Random Thoughts. Her blog was so cute and we had so many similar interests that I sat and read each and every post practically that night. After that, I knew I had to start my very own blog.

That is when A Little Pink in the Cornfields was born. It began as therapeutic for me, and in the 4 years since, it has turned into a hobby and a lifestyle. It is still therapeutic, but now I look at the blogging community as a group of girlfriends, as confidants, as my inspiration. Many of my blogging friends have turned IRL friends, and I look forward to listening to their opinions and reading what they write everyday.

I hope that I can continue to sustain this new(ish) hobby of mine and grow my blog, but most importantly, I hope I can continue to make new blogging friends and strengthen old ones!

What got you into blogging? Do you remember the first blog that "bit" you?


10 comments:

Kelly (She Wears a Red Sox Cap) said...

Cool story :) I also have always kept a journal/diary and mind have evolved just like yours- lots of pointless complaining in the early ones! I found blogging through theknot.com I think... it's hard to even remember and I was like I wanna do this!

Mandy said...

I always enjoy reading why or how people started blogging. For me, it started when my cousins were adopting a baby from Guatemala. They started a blog to keep everyone up to date, I saw the amazing support system they had and thought " I want to do that!" And so, my blog was born. I've kept a journal since childhood as well so it was a next natural step.

Amber said...

I've also kept journals my whole life and I still have all of mine!

I started blogging when I moved to Kamloops for university. I'd been reading Glamour.com blogs for almost a year at that point and one of my classmates had a blog. It seemed fun. I had NO IDEA how it would change my life. I say that because it literally has, I would not be who I am right now without it. I don't think I would have gotten into running or tried a lot of the things I've tried without it. I've also made some amazing, amazing friends through it. I'm so glad that I fell into this hobby and amazing community!

Jenny Georgio-who said...

I'm a writer. Always have been and probably always will. I wrote journals, short stories, poems, whatever. I had to be writing. When Myspace was around they had their little "blog" section where people would post things that are longer than a comment or status but chronicled their everyday lives. I started to do that about things that would get under my skin. The feedback I got was amazing. I was shocked, people actually read my stuff and commented on it. After that I would read other people's blogs and find decided to get one on blogger. I think my first "idea" for my blog was to be a foodie blog...then went to fashion...and then I realized I should just be me. If I feel like writing about food it I would, if I wanted to write about fashion I would...If I wanted to write about the prick that pissed me off...I would... Giftedly-Outspoken was born!

Nora said...

I had diaries, even my childhood ones up until about a year ago during which time I tossed most of them. Not sure why but it seemed like a good idea at the time. I started blogging as per my mom's suggestion (she's always been a writer and she was blogging before me) when I was going through a rough patch thanks to a break up that left me, well broken. Five years in and I can't stop. I think the first blog that really bit me was one that doesn't exist anymore; she was an east coast blogger and a mom but just so sweet and funny and a little bit wry. I started making blog friends from there on out and in 2009 went to vegas to meet bloggers and since then, well it's been about making friends just as much as about writing for me :) Can't wait to meet you, hopefully in January :) :)

Lesli said...

Karyn got me blogging, too and I am so grateful that I met you through blogging & that we have become friends! I have kept a diary off and on since I was 23, more off lately but I just recently started keeping one again for my more personal thoughts--the ones that don't always find their way to my blog. It helps to write things down--it is so therapeutic. I have kept all my old diaries, sadly the ink has faded on some of them, but I can still pretty much read them. Actually, I had diaries from when I was in junior high and high school, but I distinctly remember burning those! :-)

Lisa from Lisa's Yarns said...

I started reading Matt Logelin's blog in the spring of 2008 when he was featured in the Star Tribune. I was hooked, so I started a blog for my trip to France. And then i started a new one after that. I 'met' Amber through glamour.com back when I used to have time to read their blog, like smitten. And then the rest, as they say, is history. Blogging has been life changing for me as well. I have made amazing freiendships and gone on amazing trips because of it!

The Many Thoughts of a Reader said...

I started my first blog in 2000. I started it because a group of girls I knew from an online message board group started accounts on livejournal as well. Then I moved to blogger because I wanted a different space for my book blog. And then I slowly started posting more and about not just book stuff on my book blog. I also had diaries growing up and I still have them all. I hate reading them though because I was so freaking boy crazy that I hate myself.

Crazy Shenanigans-JMO said...

Do you ever remember hearing about a site called Live Journal? I use to have one of those in high school and college and that's what got me started. I stopped for a long time but then when I was unemployed in 2008 I started up my blog!

Shoshanah said...

I used to write in journals all the time (I still have most of them actually!). And through high school and college I kept a lifejournal. But once I graduated I pretty much stopped. Of course that was when I met the boy. How unlucky is that, the one time I wasn't journal-ing anywhere is when we met?

But the first blog I read was Christine Coppa's blog Storked on glamour.com. From their I read various mommy blogs for about a year, and then wound up starting my own once I realized you didn't have to be a mommy blogger to blog!