Begin by Being Personal

Welcome to Get Personal – A Blog Carnival

This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Carnival of Personal Blogging hosted by Good Goog (that’s me!) and Blogs With Wings. This month our participants have shared their journey to personal blogging. After you’ve read my entry, scroll down to the bottom to check out everyone’s posts. Or you can just skip mine and go straight on to the lovely entrants

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It’s one of my favourite lines in You’ve Got Mail, combined with her whole rant about “your theme park, multi-level, homogenize-the-world mochaccino land”. Admitting that, out loud, means that everyone will know what an unequivocal sap I am for romantic comedies. But there you go, it’s out there. I can’t take it back.

This blog wasn’t my idea. It was my husband’s. Which is awesome on many levels. Because it indicates a level of knowing that is highly desirable in a life partner, because he has given me permission to say whatever I want about him and most importantly because I can blame him if anything goes wrong.

I didn’t really have any idea what I was doing when I started. I was thinking along the lines of a parenting blog but I just couldn’t stay on topic to save my life. And all of that research? Not really my bag. Particularly when I have an each to their own kind of philosophy. I might feel really strongly about what I do, but that’s not right for everybody. Which really, if I’d stayed on topic with the parenting thing would have been really boring. No one ever had a spirited debate over each to their own.

And slowly I morphed into a personal blogger. Although a lot of it is still very parenting related – that’s because I spend the vast majority of my day with a 2 year old. It’s hard to keep up with current events when you have a little person in your lounge room yelling ‘bounce!’

Anyone who knows anything about writing will tell you to write for your audience. I have to admit that I ignore mine (but only when I’m writing). I know that family members read it. And there’s something a lot safer about strangers reading it as opposed to people I actually know. And to this day the only narky comments I’ve ever had on this blog have been from people I know. So when I’m writing it, I write it for me and don’t think about who will be reading it. Otherwise the urge to self-censor would be too great. Not that I don’t obsess about my stats and readers. I DO. But not while I’m writing. I’m excellent at compartmentalising. Which is why I would also make an excellent spy, if it wasn’t for the fact that I can’t keep a secret to save my life. My friends assure me that this is endearing. I think they’re just being nice. But I’ll take it.

For me, personal blogging is about being true to myself. I’m not a half-in, half-out kind of girl. I’m all, or nothing. So on my blog I hang everything out there, all my joy, all my pain, all my sadness, all my pride, all my neurotic tendencies. Everything. Without reservation. Because anything less just wouldn’t be me.

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Please check our our fantastic entries for this month’s carnival.

Harriet Archer: Girl Reporter – Getting Personal with Harriet

Tina Gray {dot} Me – Just Call Me a Personal / Mummy Blogger

Marla’z Austin Chronicles – How I Got From There to Here

Sparkling Adventures – Celebrating Three Years of this Blog!

Coffee, Kids, Chaos and Me – Personal Blogging: It’s One Big Journey

Wouldn’t It Be Loverly – Why Blog

Mm is For Me – Getting Personal – Behind the Blog

Good Enough Mum – Using Double-Sided Sticky Tape for Speed

Blogs With Wings – Blog Angel Gets Personal About Blogging

Get Over It . . . I Did – Why I Saddled Up This Hobby Horse in This Horse Race

Writing Out Loud – Birth of One Blog

Random Ramblings of a Stay at Home Mum – For Whom the Blog Tolls

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Tagged as: blog carnival, blogging, personal blogging