My blogs go a long way back and are not to be confused or lumped with a journal or a diary, although there may be the occasional similarity. Blog is not yet in my online Dictionary but I found a definition in my browser:
blog bläɡ/noun 1. a regularly updated website or web page, typically one run by an individual or small group, that is written in an informal or conversational style.
Years ago now, I was hired by the United Church of Canada to write a short daily blurb - to write and record them for broadcast on independent radio (remember radio?) stations across the country - and they ended up in Australia, too I hear, but I think they were pirated. They were called Betty Jane’s Diary but I called them Happy Homilies, messages from your Big Sponsor in the Sky, 90 seconds long, a little longer than a 140-character Tweet. I learned to be economical with words. In all, I wrote about a thousand of them, and Harper Collins Canada decided to publish some of them - bathroom readers I called them then: three little chapbooks each one with a theme culled from the collection. I guess those little think pieces were my first blogs, but they stopped, I don't remember when or why.
Who first began to write a Christmas letter instead of a card, with a summary of the year’s events and the achievements of one’s children? Computers (and printers) made it easy to copy and certainly it saved a lot of hand-writing the same information over and over again. I liked the idea so much that I started writing such a letter every month or so. I called mine generic letters and used them to catch up on my news with far-flung friends.
Later I began to write a blog in preparation for a long cruise I took in 2015 - a travelblog - and I haven't stopped. I’m afraid my journey is more inner than outer and not very informative to people who expect something like The Lonely Planet. After the trip was over I kept on writing blogs and it seemed superfluous to write a generic letter as well. Except at Christmas time. I have friends who don’t have computers or who don’t have wifi or who do not not use email, so I have to print out a newsy piece for them, but it’s by the same writer and there’s only so much news each day. So this year I’m going to write One Big Blog - well, not that big , but a Christmas generic blog all in one.
Soon.