Back at it

After a few years enjoying the comfortable feedback environment of Facebook, I  have returned to blogging.

Fellow students in my Master’s program helped me put together a list of requirements for blogging.

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Blogging requires patience. 

I’m not patient. I’ve started several blogs over the years, usually with great enthusiasm, but that enthusiasm dwindled and the blogs were discontinued.

One of my first and longest-lasting blogs was called “Better Puppy Buying”, which I started in 2006. I wanted a platform to educate puppy buyers, particularly in Japan, about the connections between puppy mills, pet shops, mental illness in dogs, and hereditary disease. I wrote original posts every few days and translated articles on the subject from English to Japanese. And got no feedback. I was working my ass off and felt like the only visitors to my blog were web crawlers. Around 2008 I was too busy at work to continue the blog and I let it die. Perhaps if I had continued, the blog would by now be having a significant impact on puppy buying culture in Japan.

Blogging requires insight.

The Better Puppy Buying blog would not likely have been a success, even if I had kept it up all these years. The message of my posts was pretty dogmatic. “Buy from respectable breeders, not pet shops.” I never had much more to say than that. I have great respect for bloggers and vloggers who can consistently come up with new content and new perspectives on their topics.

Blogging requires time.

Blogging requires commitment 

Well, we’ll see how long this lasts!