Interview with Indie
His Blog: The Synchronicity of Indeterminacy
URL: indeterminacy.blogspot.com
His initial purpose: to match photos with short fiction in a writer’s photo blog
Thing to note when you visit: the interactivity; the connection between Indie and his readers; the quality of the content; the special features and unique ideas
Indeterminacy of Purpose
Every one of us was a new blogger once. One day we’d never heard of a blog. The next day we had. That was the beginning.
In this part of the conversation, Indie shares how he decided to start a blog and determined what it’s form and purpose would be.
Indie, what made you start the blog? How did you decide on its purpose?
I first found out that blogs existed early in 2004 and had a vague wish to start my own. But I was uncertain as to what it could be. I thought the world could do without another online diary. At the same time I discovered the phenomenon of finding photos via file sharing programs. By summer I had further vague ideas of starting perhaps a photo blog with my own photography, or perhaps a short story, novella, or even a novel built around a series of photographs I had found via p2p. I’d written a few short stories before, but writing had never been a major part of my life. In fact, writing had always been such a painstaking process to me, I could not imagine writing anything longer than a few pages. Despite the verbose answers I am giving here, brevity of expression is one of the concepts I admire most.
My catalyst for beginning the blog was stumbling upon the site 10eastern.com, which had received lots of attention for it’s gallery presentations of found photos, as selected by the site’s proprietor. Until then I was skeptical about the acceptance of a blog which used found photos–photos which were sometimes unintentionally shared.
I greatly admire the stories of John Cage written for his Indeterminacy project, and all of a sudden I realized that the best way for me to do my project was not with a long story wrapped around a series of photographs, but daily one-minute short stories in the form and perhaps style of John Cage’s stories. I believed it would be possible for anyone to have at least one good idea per day. That’s how it all fell into place.
Blogging can keep us so involved day to day, that we forget to stop to see where we are. There was a reason we each started blogging. How has that purpose changed over time? Is our purpose still our guide, or have we lost sight of it?
Knowing the purpose of my blog makes it easier to make decisions about what belongs and what does not. I want to keep enough focus so that when readers return, they’ll know they’re on familiar ground.
My personal blog’s purpose is to offer readers a place to get away from the world, share a few stories, and wonder about things. What’s the purpose of your blog?
Like the bloggers who blog them, every blog needs a purpose in life.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
