As a blogger, I read other blogs. You know, being a blogger is kind of like being an exhibitionist. You expose a little of yourself; you open the curtains just enough to allow others to peer in. As a reader of blogs, you wander around the interhood, or neighborweb, looking into those windows until you find something that interests you. Once you do, you keep coming back.

I read several blogs on a regular basis for several reasons. Some are entertaining; some are from friends and colleagues; some are both. Others focus on how to build a community for your blog or how to use the WordPress toolset to customize and personalize your blog. I recently wrote to one of these such blog authors, Liz Strauss, and to my pleasant surprise, she wrote back. I found some inspiration in that, but not necessarily in her words to me, but mine to her.

The thing is, I don’t really know exactly what I’m looking for. I’m an ex-programmer (Mainframe, COBOL, JCL etc) …. I picked up this blogging thing for fun a year or so ago. I’m spending time learning how to code and customize in WordPress. (I get a feed from Lorelle that helps there.) Being an ex-programmer, I get quite a charge out of doing that. My problem is that I am finding it hard to get inspired. You know… because my audience is limited to those close to me, blogging kind of feels like publishing my diary. I don’t want it to feel that way. I want to find a balance of entertaining those who know me and those who don’t. (If I can entertain myself in the process, all the better.)

I may have been already answering my own question. In the last little while, I’ve been getting feeds from other bloggers like myself. Those with no particular goals or purposes… you know, informal blogs but not like those criticizing the government or corporation bashing… I’m seeing what those people write about, seeing what they find worthy of print, reading comments on their blogs, visiting those sites….

You know, this email feels very much like a blog entry. (Do you feel like the therapist that said “Tell me a little more about that. How does that make you feel?”)

What all this boils down to is there is no right or wrong in blogging. Write what you feel, what you think about, what amuses you. Write about something, anything, or nothing in particular. Write about the fact that you have nothing to write about. Heck, I’ve been doing that for a couple of years now.

You bloggers out there… where do you get your inspiration? What stirs up your creative juices?