This week in her Blogging Insights series Dr Tanya asks how real life people and events inspire our blogging efforts.

TODAY’S QUESTION

Do real-life events and real people inspire your blog posts, and how?

I don’t consider myself a lifestyle blogger. This blog is not about how we live our lives and why others should do the same. It’s more of a journal of everyday happenings, thoughts and opinions. Naturally it is influenced by what is going on around me.

If I visit a museum or go to an event I like to write about it because firstly I usually have pictures to share and secondly I hope that it might be useful to someone who is interested in the subject or who plans to visit the the same event in the future. I have found that even for photo challenges I don’t like to post a photo without an explanation of what it is or where it is.

Although I don’t make a big deal of it one of the things that I always intended was that this blog would be a bit of a showcase for Tasmania. It is not such a well known part of Australia. There are no large cities and as we are physically separate from the rest of Australia some people are not even sure if Tasmania is part of Australia at all. I want to help those geographically challenged people and show off my adopted home state.

Every now and again I choose to write something about events in the news. I nearly always do this when there is an election due because I realise that our method of voting is different from say the USA or UK for example and feel it might be interesting for others to hear about. I sometimes touch on the issues of the day but I do try to keep this blog relatively free of politics because I don’t want a lot of arguing here. As I’ve said before I blog to enjoy myself and I don’t enjoy conflict.

Real life events do sometimes inspire a post. Like the time that I was visiting Melbourne and during a walk to take photos I came across a memorial to a homeless man. That intrigued me so much that I researched it when I got home and eventually wrote a post about it. More often though my inspiration comes from conversations I’ve had with people or from posts from other bloggers. If I find myself writing a very long comment on someone’s post I generally decide that if I have that much to say about it I should write a post myself.

I like history and sometimes I like to write about events I have read about but adding a bit of my own perspective. I’ve told the story of the Tasman Bridge Disaster in a post. Not long ago I wrote about the non event of the Adelaide Tsunami and another time mystery of the missing Beaumont Children. These were all news stories in their day that Australians my age remember happening but younger people may not and nor would overseas readers necessarily have heard of about them.

I don’t really write about people I know so much unless I know they won’t mind. I made an exception once to write a tribute to a a popular local bus driver who passed away some years ago. I would probably write similar pieces to that in the future but I do try to respect people’s privacy.

I don’t write fiction or poetry. I don’t have the skill or perhaps the interest to learn. Real life is what inspires me.