Picture by futureshape on Flickr

When I was in my preteen years, my grandmother would bring a whole stack of magazines to my mum each month. She read just about every magazine going, I think.

My favourite parts of the magazines were the little columns about peoples’ lives. There’d usually be a woman in each magazine who would write a weekly piece about her husband or kids or whatever. And then there was always the page at the back of the magazine, where someone would write a longer piece with a really light and airy feel – and usually a little paragraph at the end that tied the whole article up in a neat little bow.

It was through those columns that I first came across Sue Townsend and Adrian Mole. The fictional Adrian was a couple of years older than me, but I began to realise that that type of column could host other types of voices.

And I started writing a diary. I was just beyond my thirteenth birthday, and I think that I had something in mind about entertaining people. Something about writing a kind of parody of myself that would have people doubled over with laughter.

I didn’t achieve that, of course. What I actually wrote was a diary about the stuff of teenage angst. Most of it about boys who weren’t at all interested in me. Almost all of it makes my toes curl with embarrassment (I had a quick flick through this afternoon in search of something to include here, and it truly is awful).

I thank my lucky stars that the internet didn’t get properly started until I was well beyond my teenage years. I would have poured all of that angst out on livejournal and would still be regretting it now.

Thankfully, I carried on writing privately, and I kept that up for a good ten years or so, writing in little exercise books from Woolworths rather than restricting myself to a daily slot in an ordinary diary.

The thought of wanting to share and to entertain stayed with me, though, although I’ve never been able to apply myself thoroughly enough to write anything of any substance.

I came across blogging in 2005, I think. I don’t think I went through any great thought-process about why I wanted to blog; it just seemed a perfectly natural thing to join in with.  I had a blog on blogger for about eight months or so and really loved doing it – I stopped because a few things in my life changed and I didn’t make time for it.

When I came back to the blogosphere in the spring of this year, I was so surprised at how much everything had changed.  I’d arrived here expecting that things would be pretty much as I’d left them five years ago, and that I could just sort of puddle through by posting bits and pieces about everything and nothing. I hoped that the occasional comment would come my way, and that I’d feel a little bit affirmed if one or two people wrote something nice.

Which, of course, is a huge underestimate of how it all works now.  Everyone seems so focused and driven, and I’m feeing wonderfully empowered and surprised every day at how this blogging thing isn’t just an oddity any more.  Or at least that, if it is still an oddity, there are people out there who are every bit as strange as me to grow and learn together with.

I still have that habit of turning straight to the back page as soon as I open a magazine.

The odd thing now is that it’s kind of strange to read a piece of writing about someone’s life and not be invited to add a comment at the end!

I took this prompt from the linkup over at By Word of Mouth. What a great idea for a linkup post!

I’ve taken another of the Summer Blog Social prompts for today. I’m looking at things from a different point of view to yesterday’s post, which covered starting out as a blogger.

Today I’m exploring some of the things that I look for as a blog reader.

The Prompt – “When you visit a blog, what areas – besides the main post – do you check out? Do you visit the Nav Bar pages? Look at the sidebars? Check for a list of categories or tags? Talk about the elements of a website that are most important to you.”

I spend a lot of time reading blogs. Probably far too much time, actually. There are a few things that I’m particularly drawn to.

Likes…

I come to most blog posts via either twitter or google reader. Without a doubt, the most important thing is the post itself. If I enjoy that, I’ll click through to the main page and start to look around.

My personal taste is for

:: A clean, uncluttered style.

:: Dark-ish text on a light-ish background.

:: Lovely headers and great design (I’m ridiculously envious of people who achieve this one!).

:: Sidebar(s) at one side, preferably the right, with everything in a reasonable order.

:: Design elements (social media icons etc) that follow through in the style of the blog.

:: Pictures that complement the posts.

:: I love to know a little more about the blogger, and I’ll often read the ‘About Me’ page if there is one.  If there are other pages, I’ll go to those if there’s something there that sounds interesting.

:: I also like to see a ‘top posts’ bit on the sidebar. I like to know the other posts that readers have enjoyed; they’re often a great place to start.

And a few irritations…

:: Blogs that are difficult to comment on and don’t allow sign-in with a plain old dot com address (without a blogger or wordpress.com profile). So many times, I reach the end of a great post and have something to say and find myself unable to join in.

:: Distracting styles and backgrounds, including things like sidebars at both sides and really busy layouts.

:: Pop-ups and strong sales pitches for things I don’t want to buy.