Recently, a friend, Zosia, has told me I should focus on Instagram because nobody reads blogs anymore.
I explained that I have other motivations to write than for an “instant” dopamine hit.
I am writing my thoughts:
- because I simply like to write
- to analyze what I was thinking in the past
- for my kids for when they are grown up and interested in reading them
- to leave some intellectual legacy, no matter how small
- because I want to write books, and remembering little facts from the past is crucial
Could I use private Google Docs, Obsidian, a notebook, and a fountain pen?
No really. I tried them all and more.
Private records are often forgotten and forever lost. I have piles of notebooks that will no doubt join my funeral pyre. I have countless digital documents that will never see the light of day.
Blogger.com has been my friend, and it works well enough for me. Yes, I fear Google will discontinue it someday, but that is true for any medium.
I want to write books as they survive the longest, but that might have to wait till my retirement.
My friend's question, however, got me thinking more about the reasons for blogging.
Let's take leaving a historical record, for example.
I was chatting with my cousin Anna about our ancestry, and hardly anyone in the family can recall more than a few generations. I had the same conversation with my aunt Maryna.
We need to know where we came from and our ancestors' customs and ideas. Nobody wants to be forgotten.
This morning, for example, I was talking to Zina about her writing.
We talked about her vast experience of life in Soviet kołchoz (колхоз), the collapse of the Soviet Union and ruble banking, the 10 years she spent in Italy, her work with Alzheimer’s disease patients, and her Moldovan and Italian cooking. That would be a vital record to leave to my kids when they are old enough to be interested.
For additional motivation for writing, I add that there is a residual income to be made:
A solid benchmark for monetizing your blog is around 10,000 monthly pageviews. This level of traffic allows for the exploration of sponsored posts and can command a few hundred dollars per post. Blogs with higher traffic, such as 100,000 monthly pageviews, may secure over $1,000 for a single post.
Until now, I did not care about traffic, but my blog shows 10,000 pageviews/month, which I could try monetizing in the future.
