Bit of a Ramble (No Pictures!)

Sharon, who is back over at inaminuteago, was kind enough to write:

I have been thinking about ways to sustain energy for larger works while they are in progress. All last year I watched with interest the blogs of both Linda at Chloe’s place and Pam Kellog of Kitty and me . Over the past year both these women have constantly blogged their work in progress. Other crazy quilters have done so too but I am focusing on these two bloggers as both Linda and Pam have a particularly prolific and beautiful out put and I am wondering/thinking if their blogs assist in this. [end quote]

Well, Thank You Sharon! I am rather chuffed to find myself in the same category as Pam Kellogg, as I think her work is very special.

I have to say, thinking of your question – I don’t know!!!!! The scientist in me wants an identical me, as a control, who doesn’t blog, to see if the output would be the same.

But there is one thing I do know – it inspires me to better document and record what I am doing. But on the whole I THINK I would be doing the same stuff anyway – much of what I am writing about on my blog at the minute is stuff that I started before I started the blog. I just started the blog to make me finish it – but that is more a matter of life pressures rather than blogging making that possible. I do have to say that I don’t run around thinking “I have got to finish this so I can blog it” or “I need to finish this so I have something to blog about”. I can always find something else to blog on about (Oooooh – is that a new use of the word blog???)

But, what I do know is, I am having more fun doing it.

I have always been a writer/publisher in some form (and am still a paper-based publisher in real life), so it is something to which I think I took naturally, and it didn’t really hold any fears for me. And I am also by nature a cataloguer and documenter, so this was a fun way to do it. Having a scanner and a digital camera is a very effective in making web-publishing achievable.

[Deviation – any newbies reading this – start your documenting now, if you haven’t already – you will really regret it later when you want to look back and see how much you have grown].

Also, I don’t write for a particular audience, although I am delighted to find people do drop by. As a list-maker/cataloguer, youy greatest joy is when someone actually uses what you produce – just producing the thing itself is meaningless, unless someone actually uses it – and I think blogs are possibly the same. So I guess I tend to try and make it attractive – it is not a place for me to take the woes of the world, even though I have very strong views on, for example, Human Rights issues. They don’t belong here. This blog is for Stitchin’

Although there is always that Banner I want to make of a white CQ Dove of Peace on a purple CQ background.

Need to go and write that one in my paper-based visual journal (which is a whole different story).

Sharon – I don’t know if the blog changes my output volume – I suspect it doesn’t. I suspect it doesn’t even do the extra bit of pushing to make me finish – but it does make me feel better when I do. Because people then make nice comments, and you think the whole thing has been a bit more worthwhile if it means things to others too.

But it is a bit like bouncing ideas off friends - it may change the nature of my output - I am very much someone who works on something (eg the peacocks, dragonflies and fans) as a way of examining that theme, and once I have done my examination, I don't really have to finish the piece to be done with the theme. So maybe there is a tiny bit of reporting/being accountable to "someone" in there. But I don't really think that is the big issue. The big issue is having "someone/something" out there to bounce stuff off, which often helps you clarify things for yourself, even if no-one answers.

Does that make sense????