I've been mulling this blog over for a long time. I pinned down the title over a year ago but after the initial rush of enthusiasm died off I found myself wondering just what I had to add to the blogosphere that's worth expounding upon. I reasoned that I could go the route of vanity blogging but pining away on the whatever-ness of being me didn't seem worthwhile. Don't get me wrong, I'm not waxing depressive; I'm just pretty sure that there are enough bloggers out there pounding the virtual paper with that kind of theme.
So what to write about? Maybe it's all been done? Maybe the whole blog wave has passed and the tide's gone out leaving everybody standing in the mud among the tide pools. I took to Google, typed in "Indiana Blog", and hit return to - if I came up with pages after pages about life in the state I promised myself I'd put the idea to rest and walk away. The results were interesting.
There are a lot of lawyer blogs out there. I never thought that there'd be law blogs - I mean, don't get me wrong, but it's kind of a dry subject. Now add to that the concept of law blogs directly associated with Indiana? Talk about niche markets! The Indiana Department of Tourism and Chamber of Commerce have blogs. Some Indiana-based news organizations have blogs. In fact there were over 58 million hits for my combination of search terms but in the first three pages I didn't find a single link to a blog belonging to a resident (as opposed to a business or organization) of the state who'd decided to write about the state and living inside its borders. On page four I did find a web ring that provided a few links to blogs by actual Hoosiers about actually being a Hoosier, but too many of those blogs seemed to be dead and forgotten.
My interest was piqued and my thoughts of dumping my blogging idea vanished.
So, what is this project about? What is my mission statement? What is the y purpose for putting out all of this creative effort? Well, we all know that blogging won't make you rich so obviously I can scratch that off the short list. Instead I'm hoping to show some of the things in the state that people don't usually see, expound on the psychology of being a Hoosier, and generally write about the state I love.
So, on July 5, 2009 I step off the end of the pier and take the plunge. Whether I end up splashing into pleasantly cool water or find that the tide's gone out remains to be seen. This project might ill-conceived, doomed, and in a few months this blog might end up discarded with the wadded-up fast food wrappers alongside the information superhighway with the rest of the Internet's jetsam. It's a possibility but you'll never know if you don't try.
