No Longer Ambivalent

Damaria Senne

A number of developments affected my aims and objectives as a blogger since I last posted on Fine Art of Blogging. The big difference is that I’m no longer ambivalent about blogging. I’m not addicted yet, but I enjoy it now.

Part of the reason is that blogging is now taking flight in South Africa, with local media houses setting up blog networks. My employer ITWeb was among the companies that launched blog networks where anyone could join. Employees are not under pressure to blog, but some of my colleagues joined up.

The increased awareness about blogging among my acquaintances made it easier for me to introduce people to my first blog, Storypot, where I post children’s stories and talk about parenting and writing.

I still feel naked when I talk about my creative writing or people comment about my children’s stories. But that is something that happens whether people who know me as a journalist learn that I write children’s stories from the blog or other means.

The second development was more internal - I have come to realize that as I grow as a human being, my blogging also evolves.

When I first launched Storypot in 2005, I was creating a place were readers can access samples of my work, and editors can see the variety of children’s stories I’m capable of creating.
I also created a combination parent/ writer’s journal, sharing how these two roles feed and influence each other.

The collection of children’s stories is slowly growing. Some need strong editing and rewriting, but they are out there, mostly reassuring me that I am doing something to make the dream of writing children’s books a reality. But the scope of my commentary is also growing as new elements come into my life, influencing my writing processes.

So Storypot is not what I started out with, and it’s not what it was when I first posted on Quasifictionalviews. But it reflects the evolution of my creative writing and the things that inspire me.

Through the blog, I also made connections with local children’s writers/editors. I also gained a measure of recognition for the blog. South African media analyst and ICT commentator Arthur Goldstuck also named me “Player of the Week” on the Mail and Guardian’s Thought Leader. A production company also approached me with a view of including me in its profiles of South African writers for a documentary.

I was content with the way things were going until, over lunch one day, a friend suggested I launch a blog on my employer’s network. This one would earn me enough for a regulator cup of tea, she said. I tried to explain that my schedule was hectic enough as it is; I didn’t have time to start another blog.

“All you have to do is write the posts, and I’ll put them up for you. And when I have time, I’ll help you promote the blog,” she said.

How could I say no when someone believed in my unborn blog enough to invest their own time on it? That’s how Mobile Life, where I look at the impact of mobile phones on the way South Africans work, play, learn and communicate, came into being.

I have strong views about the subject, but I also recognize that Mobile Life allows me to use my area of expertise as a journalist to develop a product that’s mine, helping me develop an independent revenue stream.

Promoting Mobile Life is also easier, in part because I now know how to promote a blog and have implemented a strategy that is slowly but surely growing my audience.