Jo Ind

PLEASURE.

That’s it, I’ve said it.

I was leading a workshop for Birmingham Book Festival last weekend called Finding Your Blogging Voice. One of the first things we did was brainstorm our reasons for blogging. Between us we said:

• to have a voice
• to showcase work
• to create an archive of material
• to explain a business
• to connect with people
• to improve SEO.

I was leading the workshop and so I forgot to say that, though I do indeed get all those benefits from blogging, my number one reason for going tap, tap, tap at my lap top as I am right now is because I enjoy it.

There are all sorts of different pleasures, of course.

The pleasure of blogging isn’t like that of sex or swimming or lying on the sofa with a glass of wine. It’s  more like the pleasure of making a photo album – but using word-pictures rather than images.

And, as I said when I created this website, it’s like the pleasure of having my own room and getting it just how I want – my own little bit of cyberpace where I can play and muse and hang out with my friends.

In her seminal post What We’re Doing When We Blog, Meg Hourian talks about the anatomy of a post and the communication evolution etc.  It’s all good stuff.

But she doesn’t say: “Having fun.”  That’s what I’m doing when I blog and the day it stops being enjoyable, is the day I’ll stop blogging.

At last, I can reveal I have a new business card….

It’s not wonky in real life – that’s down to the photographer’s skill and creativity.

Since February I’ve been working for Maverick Television, the company that brought us Embarassing Bodies and How to Look Good Naked, to make a ground-breaking website for the NHS in the West Midlands.

We’ve still got a little way to go to be where we want to be but the password of NHS local was lifted yesterday.