COMPOSING A BLOG POST

     A few weeks ago a blogger commented on "composing" a post. The composing caught my attention and I have been thinking about it ever since. What has to be done to put a blog post together?

    First , I have to think that I have something to say. My Mom's advice was to say thank you and then sit down. Some people may disagree with me but that's allowed. Now I don't post on a regular basis. I don't have the time or ideas to post everyday.

     In my case, I may have a few topics in my head. I have to list them or I'll quickly forget them. When I decide on what topic I want to write on, I roll it around in my head. I think about information that I have or need. I think about the order that I want to say things . I wonder if I have any photos.

     I have all of these things in my head and then I sit down and write. I usually go over things two or three times. Sometimes I add things. Other times I change the order and sometimes things are better left unsaid. 

    Sometimes it's very hard to come up with a topic. There's just nothing I want to say. So sometimes I'm absent for a while. One has to have a little fire in the belly to keep on posting.

    Then , I pick my font, print size and run spell check. Oh yes, throw in a few labels. And let my friends on Face book know I've posted . Then I also ping it. I don't know if pinging does any good but it was recommended in Blogging for Dummies.

      I like to keep my audience in mind and try to attract other readers. That's part of writing. Sometimes I write for myself and other times I think of readers. Most of the time it's probably half and half.

     Now I notice many different writing styles out there. They're interesting or I wouldn't follow them. It's part of what makes blogging interesting.

    So how do you put things together? Well, okay, if you don't want to give your secrets away that's okay.

FRIENDLY LETTERS

     I have written on this topic before but, today I was listening to a phone in radio show and the topic was friendly letters. It got me thinking about friendly letters again.

     Now I'm old enough to know what a friendly letter is. I'm also old enough to have written many friendly letters. I grew up during the 40's and 50's. I had excellent mentors as far as friendly letter writing was concerned. My mother and Grandmother corresponded weekly. As little kids we would gather around Mom to hear Grandma's letter. 

     So when I left home I tried to write my mother a weekly letter.  I kept it up for about 5 years and then it gradually dwindled to nothing.

    Up until my mother-in-law's death we got friendly letters. Now about once every two or three years I get a friendly letter from a sister-in-law. It is an excellent letter and I like to see it come.

    So that covers that. Friendly letter writing has dwindled to nothing.

    Back to the phone in show. There are people who still write friendly letters but it seems that they are special projects. For example, one husband went through his wife's address book and asked people to write his wife a friendly letter for her birthday. She got fifty letters and is still excited today. The conclusion on the show was that friendly letter writing is dead.

     The Internet became part of the topic...emails, face book , twitter. The feeling was that these devices were part of the problem for killing the friendly letter. However, writing in these formats did not give a good letter.  Another enemy of friendly letters is the phone. There are very economical long distance rates compared to 50 or 60 years ago. It is literally cheaper to phone than write.

    Now with blogging there is more room for detailed information. The goal of some blogs is to keep friends and family informed. Some blogs consist of posts that describe daily life. They tell the story well enough to make it interesting enough to read. 

     So are you involved in any way with friendly letter writing? Has blogging taken over friendly letter writing to some extent?

    A stamp dealer was telling me that stamp collecting has almost disappeared. Young people are not interested in it. They don't write and have little to do with stamps.

What Evidence Do We Leave?

      In a previous post I dealt with cleaning closets and that some of the things I found were old and not used anymore. I'm still cleaning closets. Well, I don't put in too many hours a day.

    However some of the things you find bring back old memories. Today we were doing the closet with photos and various memorabilia. We got tough today and threw away many things. Who in the world keeps tourist brochures from 20 years ago? Okay, you don't have to answer that.

    What I did find that brought back memories was a letter that I wrote in 1963 to my brother's gr. three class. I had just gone to teach in Inuvik , NWT. My brother's class was doing a unit on Eskimos. They decided to write me and each kid asked a question. I wrote them a very long letter. This letter brought back memories and also showed what I was like in 1963. I think I've changed since then.

   I began to think about the 51 year old letter. How much of my written material is still surviving? How much material  written about me is still on file? I would think that very few bits of written information about us remain.

    Two days later! I've been at it again. I've found more boxes, folders and binders. I might have to change my mind. Today I found old school stuff and was surprised at how much I had. Here's a list: thank you notes, programs, awards, teacher evaluation reports, evaluations I did on teachers and student teachers, letters to my superintendent about me, professional development conferences. I was very surprised at how much I had. For most of the material , I would bring it home to show my wife and it would disappear. I naively thought it had been disposed. 

    Well, this material survived for a while but now it is gone. At this stage in my life I had no use for old information.  

   Then I started to think about the present time with the Internet. Much more material is left today. My blog leaves all kinds of information. I have pictures saved instead of lost in some box. Institutions such as government save much more information on me.

   So in the future  how much information will survive? Will people find more information about us? If there's more information left, researching families should give us much more information.