Who Am I and Why Am I Here?

First Post for Blogging 101/ January 2015

Who am I, etc. It’s a fair question. The About page of this blog gives a lot of the basic “facts.” Retired from a bunch of things, I’m looking to see what I can do with this medium. So far, I’ve been posting mainly photography. I’d like to expand that a little and I’m using this course as a jumping-off point. I hope to do memoir, essays, things like that.

I do keep a personal journal and it’s just that: personal. With the blog i’d like to be in touch with others. Maybe the real question is: why not Facebook or something like that?  That’s harder to answer. I see a lot of people doing interesting things on Facebook. I think the answer to that is I’m looking for a little room to turn around in.

The first topic that comes to mind is memoir, probably because I already edit a memoir section in an online magazine, so it’s a subject that interests me. Also, I think writing about the past can lead to insights about the present.

Well, of course I’d love to connect with anyone who’s interested in hearing what I have to say — and who will have things to say back to me. I’d really love to get some conversations going. I suspect most of my readers will come from my age cohort, but I don’t assume it. When I was younger, I was interested in what some of the oldies had to say. I’m guessing there may be younger people out there who may connect with me in the same way.

If I blog successfully throughout the next year, I would hope to have written at least a handful of repeatable essays and

connected with some interesting people. Oh yes, and not least, I hope to learn more about how to use WordPress.