So, I’ve been neglecting my blog since long. For work, yes, and a lot of other inexplicable stuff. It’s sad and funny at the same time. Funny, because all the work I do now originated from blogging at some time, and sad, because I miss my blog!

I don’t know when it all began. I’d open the ‘New Post’ page on my blog and sit blank for minutes, hours at times. I wanted to write about a lot of things apart from book reviews. I’m not a ‘Personal’ blogger, don’t like to rant about mundane trivia hand-picked from my daily life for random readers. Hence, I had reservations on what to write. Perhaps, when you have surplus topics at hand, you lose out on your priorities. I debated with myself whether a particular piece should be posted here, on my ‘Free’ blog, or somewhere else who’d pay me. That’s one of the core dilemmas of many bloggers who’d be ashamed to admit the fact. Ashamed, of what? Of the fact that bloggers need money for what they write. Oh yes, these words are our sweat and blood because we are capable of churning them out.

Don’t be ashamed if you charge for your articles. “There’s no such thing as free lunch.”

Virtue or Vice

Have people looked down upon you as a blogger? Join my league, then. In my part of the world, 90% of the people I meet, live, interact with are totally unaware of Blogging. Since lesser knowledge is more dangerous than no knowledge at all, people assume you do nothing. Apart from wasting your time ‘on the computer’, trying to scribble something. Blogging hasn’t yet been a profession actively, it’s still a ‘time-pass,’ not only to the older generation, but to ours as well. I have friends, relatives, neighbours who can teach courses on social media and yet don’t know what a blog is. I’ve been asked repeatedly , “What do you write on a blog? How do you write it (as in, type or hand-write or whatever)? Who publishes it? Does anybody read it at all? What do you gain from it?”

When you cross over the blogger circles into Mango People, blogging seems an alien time-pass which doesn’t earn you a thing, let alone money! It’s probably seen as a vice which hinders housewives from performing their household chores, hampers work in office from young employees, and is a vent for frustrated poets who can’t find a publisher. My people still refer to my work as – “O toh ektu lekhalekhi kore.” (She’s bloody struggling to publish some crap she writes all day. No real job, man!)

Things change, though. Vices turn an angle or two towards virtue when you win. Contests. Trips. Gadgets. Money. I won an iPad recently and very slowly, at the trickling pace of a person or two, began taking notice of blogging. I’ve watched friends win big in blogging contests hitherto, and this is my first ‘big’ win (besides vouchers). I might have expected winning an expensive gadget via blogging someday, but I doubt if people around me ever thought so.

Un-blogged

These and more factors held me back from blogging regularly. Though I’m not an aggressive blogger, I’m still passionate about it. About expressing myself through these words, stating my views on a lot of topics, teaching people a thing or two on writing book reviews. And more.

Now while I’m back to blogging after a hiatus (besides the customary book reviews), it feels like homecoming. Into familiar pastures, feeling the soft moist dewdrops on grass, soaking them slowly, opening new windows (more on that later). With a promise of not selling everything to paid avenues, sharing more with the few readers I have and trying to write more and better. Un-blogging for a few days or months isn’t that bad, if it gets you back to blogging. Rejuvenated.

Happy Blogging to me!