Thursday, June 5, 2008

Less vague blog title

When I started this blog, I had a few ideas for posts. But I was not sure if I could post on any kind of regular basis.

I liked the idea of clarifying my thoughts by putting them in writing. I asked myself the features provided by Blogger are a nice way to format these kinds of writings. But the main attraction for me was the possibility of readers, people to bounce my thoughts off of.

To my surprise, I've been posting two or three times a week for over three months now. The exercise of organizing my everyday thoughts into blog posts has been an unexpectedly positive experience:

  • Some persistent thoughts that I otherwise would have dismissed, I realized were actually important to me. Having my career choice questioned, for example.
  • Some ideas that sounded really good in my head made no sense written down. Sometimes I aborted these posts; other times the part of my brain that realized I was writing nonsense didn't manage to gain control of my mouse and keyboard. Either way, these posts were learning experiences for me.
  • Some ideas I decided would make poor blog posts, but good conversation with my partner. I share things with him now that I would have previously dismissed as unimportant.
The comments have been welcome, too, and I certainly hope to have more in the future. But while the possibility of commenters is very helpful in structuring my postings, it is no longer a major motivator to continue blogging.

These posts are primarily written to see how they look to me on the screen, how they affect me written down, and only secondarily to elicit reactions to others. To try to indicate this role in my blog's title, I've turned to a semi-nonsense passage often used as placeholder text:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
This text is often known by its first two words, lorem ipsum, and I've played on them with my internet handle to retitle my blog, Lyrlem Ipsum. (The address will not change, just the title.)

2 comments:

Jennifer @ Conversion Diary said...

As you can imagine, I can relate to your experiences. I've also found that putting my ideas into words is almost always a very fruitful exercise. It helps me clarify my thoughts and focus on what really matters.

Love the new name! I've used that same text many times so I immediately recognized the reference.

lyrl said...

Thanks!