Looby Ruby: The Virtues of Blogging

I've been reading the latest Spring 2008 edition of Artful Blogging, a visually stunning and inspirational publication from Stampington & Co - http://www.stampington.com/
Just flicking through the pages of this weighty volume makes you drool with anticipation of the temptation waiting for you inside and actually getting down to reading it.... well I tell you, woe betide anyone who interrupts me when I'm floating away in the land of Creativity Heaven (yes there really is such a place and you all know it!).

Stampington & Co Publications really wear the crown when it comes to this genre of magazine – there’s nothing that can match their superb articles, printing, content and quality – I really believe that and put my money where my mouth is by subscribing to Somerset Studio Magazine and their other quarterly and bi-annual magazines – Somerset Life and Somerset Home – each one enticing and delicious as the last!

Wow! just read that last paragraph back to myself and I sound like their Sponsor - may be they should give me commission for this write up! :-O

Anyway, this latest edition is packed with such inspiring stories from real life artists who share their passion of art and how they began blogging and after reading cover to cover I noticed a pattern forming in the experiences each artist had to say about venturing into Blogland:

they were scared at first

they thought they had nothing to say

even if they did have something to say, who would be interested in reading it

would it become tedious and tiresome

they weren't writers they were artists

they had no photography skills

they lacked confidence

they weren't computer savvy

There were lots more similarities - but you know what? - each of these amazing people, little by little, overcame their fears, inadequacies, lack of skills and by sharing their fears with friends and family they gained confidence and opened the door to Blogland and all it had to offer and those doors have remained opened for them ever since.

Reading their stories has inspired me and fired me up to enter the realms of Blogland myself and even tho' I'm a newbie to blogs I'm not a newbie to journaling - the big difference is that it's online and you're sharing! I've always enjoyed writing - whether it be keeping a diary/journal, scrapbooking, writing letters, poetry, writing short articles for newsletters - whatever it is I've always known that I could put pen to paper and string a line of comprehensible words together - but would what I have to say be interesting to other people - ahh that's where the crux of the question lies!

The blogs I've read online, well most of them are about ordinary people going on with their ordinary lives and what they do and create - but that's interesting to me and I like that kinda stuff - but most of, all they get read by hundreds of people who share the same kind of experiences with them and can relate to them and that's what does it I think - that's what opens them up to the world and everyone in it - the togetherness of the world - sharing, giving, receiving, playing, creating, seeing, watching, reading, posting, crafting, imagining, crying, laughing and loving!

I WANT TO BE PART OF THIS AMAZING WORLD!