VOF Week 3: (To blog or not to blog ... that's the question)

I still remember that time when I was living in Spain for the first time in 1997, when the newspapers used to offer “workshops” to teach how to use Internet.

But soon, that incredible tool just become essential for the majority of us. Actually, today I prefer to lose my phone that my internet connection… without it, I feel “isolated”

It was in 2003 when I hear for the first time about a new “fashion” in the internet’s world: the blogs, and when I tried to understand what exactly that term was meaning in that time, I remember that I thought: “Uff! this is too much… who is going to be interested on read every personal diary, if all of us start to write our stories?”

But finally, I had my first blog in early 2007: (http://cnnexpansion.mediotiempo.com/invertir-en-la-humanidad/) … and it was a failure, I have to say that. I was disappointed and I became anxious searching for new comments of my readers… or to say the truth, searching for comments that never (or almost never) came to my blog.

At that time, CNNExpansion, established a kind of “competition” among the bloggers, and I hated that, because for me and my blog was unfair: I was writing about social issues in an economical news website, and nobody was interested on my points of view, … I felt in a solitary confinement.

But now, 2 years after that first experience of blogging, I am able to understand some important things about blogs:

1)You have to write in the right time, 2) in the right place, and 3) to the right people. Also, I learned that 4) you have to write about things that you are passionate about, but… 5) with a deeply knowledge, which means, sometimes, that 5) you have to have a personal experience of the issue, or at least, 6) you have to write contents with the ones you are deeply and sincerely involved

Now I took my second chance of blogging: http://www.diasiete.com/04-04-2009/los-bombardeos-humanitarios-de-la-otan where writing about peace-conflict issues, I finally found MY THEME.

At this moment, I am not worried about comments: I write what I feel, and that is enough satisfaction. I still doing some research before blog, but I use to write my OWN points of view, and with that, I discovered the real secret of blogging: consistency mixed with sincerity and my own personality.

Yes … in some way I still searching for “a big success and thousands of readers”, but I am sure that they will come little by little.

For now, I prefer to improve my own writing while I find my total voice… it is a road that you have to walk day by day, with patience and perseverance. That’s the biggest lesson that a blogs teach to the bloggers.