BLOGS ARE LIKE SMALL WINDOWS

Stacy Juba nominated our blog for an award and we’d like to pay it forward by nominating the following blogs:

http://bethgroundwater.blogspot.com

http://bschlichting.blogspot.com

http://bushdogblues.blogspot.com

http://death-by-killing.blogspot.com

http://fivescribes.blogspot.com

http://www.jungleredwriters.com

http://www.killercharacters.com

http://www.leelofland.com/wordpress/

http://writerspoliceacademy.com

http://lenbogarad.blogspot.com

http://mysteryloverskitchen.com

http://sasanoleksiw.blogspot.com

http://theunpredicatablemuse.blogspot.com

http://travelswithkaye.blogspot.com

I hope you’ll enjoy looking up these blogs that both entertain and inform.

I first heard of blogs in a CSI show, now off the air. One of the lab techs blogged daily and a killer was inspired by the blog to kill again. Then a friend in the UK gave me the address of her blog. She’s an inspired photographer who captures people and scenes at unusual times and angles. Still, the world of blogs remained an unknown territory for me because a blog seemed like a diary and I’ve never kept a diary.

I could never visualize someone two hundred years from now finding my diary and being overwhelmed by the historical details of our daily lives. Leaders of writing groups I’ve attended have urged students to keep a writing diary. What would I note—a spectacular sunset, a deer crossing the street at midnight, or a conversation overheard in a restaurant? If the former mean anything to me, I easily remember them in pictorial and auditory detail. If I wrote the details in a diary, I doubt whether my kids or grandkids would say, she was so sensitive to the world around her, so creative. No, they’d probably say, do you think she was worried about going blind or losing her memory?

As a child, I remember having to plough through the writings of Samuel Pepys who kept a diary that recorded the great fire of London. Mostly, I remember him because of a ditty written about Lady Godiva. Covered only by her long hair, she rode naked on a horse through the streets of Coventry to make her husband stop demanding such high taxes from the people of Coventry. Although Pepys and Lady Godiva were separated by six centuries, that didn’t stop a writer celebrating her nakedness and noting that “naughty Samuel peeps.”

While I still thought of blogs as similar to diaries, I started to notice that writers whose work I enjoyed had web pages and blogs. Then, Elaine asked me to join our blog. Suddenly, I discovered a whole new world of fascinating people and information. Blogs keep me updated on people I’ve met and their accomplishments, and introduce me to people I might never meet.

Do I regret not being able to see all these people in person—you bet. A century, no twenty years ago, I wouldn’t have known what I was missing. I make the best of the time in which I live and contact through blogs interesting people I see once or twice a year or not at all.

Have you been surprised by what you discovered in a blog? Do you wish you could meet in person blog writers?