On Blogging

First Sayuncle wrote a post about the current state of gunblogging and then Breda ran with it for her most recent BB & Guns podcast. I really wanted to call into Breda's show to talk about this topic but it seems I'm always doing something on Thursday nights that makes me miss the show. Breda keeps joking with me that she's going to push the time back again so I can make it.  No, No, No.

Anyway, I thought I'd start this post by talking about how I got started in the gunblogging community. I originally started writing a livejournal back in 2003 or 2004. These days I like to call that my repository of mental vomit. There was a lot of me complaining about school, my father, surgeries, and basically venting my frustrations and being emo. Much of what was written in there was crap, including a roughly year long stint as an opiate addicted zombie that ended with scaring myself straight. I also pulled above a 3.0 GPA that year, which I'll never understand. Damnit, now I'm rambling. As those of you who follow this blog already know, I love to argue and I love sarcasm, so at some point I started writing about politics, stupid shit in the news, and gun related things.

So, onto the gun stuff. At that point I only had maybe 5 or so regular readers of my livejournal. An old childhood friend, Laura, who I'd known since I was 16 or 17, back before she was "Falnfenix," Breda, and at some point Weer'd Beard. To be honest I'm not sure how Breda & Weer'd found my livejournal, or if it was I who found them first, but these 3 folks were my only regular readers/commenters for quite a while aside from my Canadian friend. I'm lucky, I was in great company, even back then. I bought my first gun sometime between my birthday and Christmas in 2007, hit the range for the 1st time ever, wrote a post, and as they say, the rest was history.

At first I was hesitant to jump to Blogger. I didn't feel like learning a new format, was worried I'd have no readers, and was just plain lazy. There was also the little issue of having no damn clue what to call the blog, which is why you got suck with the horribly unoriginal "Another Gun Blog." That said, the fine people mentioned above had been prodding me to make the jump, so I did. "Breda did it, if she can do it so can I" was definitely part of the impetus for starting on blogger, as corny as that sounds. Breda may have linked to my inaugural range post LJ entry, though I honesty don't remember. Weer'd, I don't know what the hell took you so long to switch over from Livejournal.

Now, aside from "how did you get started?" a few of the central themes brought up by Breda, Jay & Uncle centered around whether it's harder to be a gunblogger these days and about what it takes to be a successful blogger. This blog has been around 3 years now, but I don't think I've got one damn clue what being a "successful blogger" means. Is this blog successful? Who the fuck knows? I If you look at my sitemeter probably not, but that's irrelevant. I've enjoyed blogging and have met a ton of great people who I can honestly say have enriched my life. That's success in my book.

I'm laid back and honestly don't fret about what I'm going to write here. I don't agonize over each post before I hit "submit" (though I would do well to proofread more) Hell, I don't have a blogging routine nor a theme as far as what I write about. I write here in a very "ad-hoc" manner. I rarely schedule posts, have a low bar for what's "postworthy" and there's really little sense of rhyme or reason to my posting.

I can honestly say I really just write about whatever pops into my head on a given day that I find interesting and that I think readers might enjoy as well. That's why you see an eclectic, random mix of sometimes nonsensical posts here at Another Gun Blog. In many ways I think this blog mirrors how I am in real life. Narf! (if you've met me and disagree, don't be shy) This is why I don't necessarily think it's harder to be a gunblogger these days. To be sure, we're winning, so there's less in the news for a fledgling blogger to write about. In that respect it's harder, but I subscribe to the "If you build it they will come" blogging philosophy. Blogging is an outlet for me and if others like my rambling that's just icing on the cake. I think I remember Jay G. saying it was "Therapy." Jay, if that's true then I'd hate to see what you're like when not on your daily blogging meds. ;)

I think it really comes down to it my advice would be to write about things you enjoy and have fun with it. If you need to garner an audience at the start, try pimping your blog through other social media. Just remember not to be an ass about it.