Tuesday 8 March 2011

Blogging changed my life...

... no, really; it has.

I never thought it would, back when I started this lark in Summer 2007. I certainly never planned that it might. But last week's ice-dipping post prompted the following comment from the wonderful Iota:

'(and you really did it for the blog fodder, didn't you?!)'

Pshaw! I thought. How dare she suggest I would do such a cheap, populist thing. But I know that - as ever - she's right, at least in part. I mean, it's all very well to throw yourself into a pool of freezing, smelly, pond water with a girlfriend just for fun (doesn't everyone do that to celebrate a birthday? No?), but it's another thing entirely to do it and then to be able to write about it. That makes it a lot more attractive to a sick and twisted blogging individual such as myself...

And then at lunch on Sunday with some friends, as they recoiled in horror at news of my ice dip and questioned my sanity in doing it, someone (OK, Husband, the sweet man) pointed out that there are a whole load of things that I have done that I may not have if I hadn't known I would have the chance to write about them afterward. Meeting complete strangers off a bus from Cardiff with the intention of spending an afternoon with them, for one example. Going to a gay club and watching a bloggy mate from across the pond perform her 90's hit for a crowd of adoring fans, for another. Going to the launch of the John Lewis Christmas range - on a hot day in July. Spending a morning road-testing a Dyson vacuum cleaner (you know how to live; rock and roll PM, rock and roll...).

And the big one; moving to Russia. OK, that would probably have happened anyway, but I was certainly a lot more sanguine about making the move knowing that I could write about it and reinvent it, making it funny if it proved not to be...

And this is just for starters; I know if I went back through the 800 or so posts on The Potty Diaries one by one, I would discover a lot more examples of my behaving in an uncharacteristically confident and gung-ho fashion just because I knew I would be able to show off about it to my online mates afterwards...

(Because if I'm honest, there is just a teensy bit of showing off involved when I do these things. I know. Such a surprise!)

Right now, for example, encouraged by the same friend who persuaded me to jump into a frozen lake last week, I'm even considering the madness that is running the Lake Baikal half marathon next March. You know; the one that takes place in minus 15degC, on ice, and which this year had the contestants running the first 15k's through 6 inches of fresh snow in their hobnailed running shoes. The one which has to be completed in 3 hours, or the race organisers pick you up to make sure you don't freeze to death.

I won't do it, of course; I'm the world's worst runner. Well. I probably won't.

But just imagine the blog-fodder if I did.


What about you? If you blog, are there things you've done just because you knew it would make good blog fodder?

10 comments:

  1. Blogging has been a godsend and yes I have done stuff through it that I never imagined I would like writing about cars - and really enjoying it! Road testing chocolate ..mmmmmm; sharing my problems and boy do I have problems! and well it does make a difference knowing you will be writing about it!

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  2. Nope, but then my blog is so much more boring than yours.

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  3. There's NOTHING that would get me into frigid waters, but I do stop and take pictures of things from time to time thinking that I could blog about them. I usually forget about the photos until they're well and truly un-current though.

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  4. I'm sure I've done many things for blog fodder, nothing as major as jummping into a frozen lake though.

    Whenever something sh*t happens and I'm about to throw a tantrum, my husband says "at least you'll have something to blog about". He's so right :) I do like looking at life now as an adventure to write about, rather than simply life as in good day / bad day.

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  5. I wonder if I have done myself both a service and a dis-service in blogging. Yes, it's a wonderful way to make sense of new experiences, and to get people's suppportive comments. But I wonder if it feeds the side of me that likes being a detached observer, rather than being right there in the heart of the parade that is life.

    You went along and jumped in the icy water. I'd be the blogger who went and watched the event, and then described other people doing it.

    I've started journalling for myself (and therefore am blogging a bit less), in an effort to reorientate my writing a bit to be more engaged in myself. To write for myself and as myself, rather than for other people and as Iota. Who is pretty much me, but not quite.

    Ooh, you've got me all profound now (that was Iota speaking - see how she butts in, when it's the real me trying to have a word in edgeways).

    Help. I'm disappearing up my own pretentiousness at this point.

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  6. TW, roading testing chocolate - what's not to like?

    MM, not true !(and see you tomorrow)

    EPM, come on, you know you want to take that dip in the lake...

    LJB, it helps (sometimes) doesn't it?

    Iota, believe me, if you had been here, NO WAY would you have been standing on the bank watching. You would have been in there too...

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  7. Blogging has been such a surprise - having no expectations at all I love every invitation and experience, and the chance to rant or rave about it all later is definitely an added extra. Fond memories of throwing that Dyson off the balcony, for instance!

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  8. You really got me thinking with this post. I've written on the subject and linked back to this post.

    http://blogiota.blogspot.com/2011/03/where-has-blogging-taken-me-now.html

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  9. No, actually I started blogging because of all the things happening to me, & around me in these alien countries I was suddenly living in. I blogged to chronicle these events as well as make sense of worlds so different to middle class, middle England.
    And it was cathartic.
    And I was lonely.

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  10. it's going to be great. And I'm 100% with you on the boob sweat. It's just plain unnecessary!

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