I have a post up at BlogHer today: Small Blogs: The Art of the Personal Journal
It's about how documenting your life can be valuable for future generations. Until I started reviewing some of the family history that I included in the post, I didn't consciously realize where my long-held thoughts on the subject had come from.
My grandmother (pictured above) deserves the credit for my journal-style blogging. She was an actual journalist -- a newspaper reporter and columnist who often brought anecdotes from her life into her writing. One of my favorite stories about her career was about how she scored some interview face-time with President Harry S Truman thanks to good timing and a tiny bit of rule-stretching.
One of the reasons I call my blog "Average Jane" is that I believe there is potential value in recounting even the most pedestrian details of life. The world is changing so quickly that the diaries I cite in my BlogHer post describe a lifestyle that I think very few people in the United States still experience 70 years later.
Writing this post has made me want to refocus on my blogging to make sure I'm not letting chunks of my life slip by unrecorded. Not only are my "record-keeping" posts helpful for me later on, I hope that they'll hold some interest for readers today and long in the future.
I like your thoughts on this. I also have writers in my family background and I went to journalism school at Kansas State. I would be fascinated by any sort of journal from past family members.
Posted by: Caron | October 19, 2010 at 09:16 AM