How It Started
I mostly stumbled into blogging. My decision process was short and something along the lines of, “What the heck, I can do a blog. Yeah… that could be fun!”
But then I was faced with the real question: What on earth am I going to write about? Hmmm…. For my first post, I ended up writing about not knowing what to write about. They say to write what you know. That about summed it up for me – all I knew was I didn’t know.
A theme, a theme, I needed a theme. What am I going to eat for dinner? Boy my nails look terrible. Hi Louis! I need to do the laundry before I go to work tomorrow. Wait, what was I doing? Oh, yeah…a theme, I need to think of a theme.
Ok. Concentrate. Write what you know, so what do I know?
I don’t know jack.
I kept thinking, “I just want to write about being a regular, average human being.” Oh, how original! But all my thoughts kept circling back to that. The problem is there really is no such animal. We are all so extraordinary in our own ways. We’re so much alike, and yet every one of us is a completely unique specimen. Each new thought led to a new question about what it really means to be human.
And then I realized it was going to be about the questions.
How many times have I asked someone, “So…Let me ask you this,”? I love to talk to people, to find out about them, what they think and feel, how they handle different situations. That’s me, asking questions – in my mind, if not out loud – and wondering why people are how they are, why they do what they do. What is their history, what are their motivations? So many questions to be asked!
So, that is my blog. Even when I’m just talking about my day, in the back of my mind there is the question, “Why?” Why did I do this, why did I say this, why did I act this way, why did I feel this way? Why did the other person do, say, act or feel that way?
I eventually changed the name from Let me ask you this… to Steadily Skipping Stones. I had called myself skippingstones from the beginning, and I had chosen steadilyskippingstones as my address. Whenever anyone referenced my blog, that’s what they’d call it, so I figured I’d better start calling it that, too. Interestingly, that name fits better anyway. But you can read about that here.
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steadily skipping stones 
I can see why it can be difficult to find what to write on in a blog. I personally love literature and wanted to make a blog that would encourage people to express their opinions. I have always been interesting in blogging, but before coming up with a literary blog I did not know what to write about. I feel like my life is too routine to write about. I do not do many things out of the ordinary, especially at college. I am sure I could make a blog about myself, but sometimes I have a hard time describing myself in an interesting way. I am just me. I am glad you could find things that interest you and allowed you to create such a well made blog. I will try to read your posts as often as I can (Hayley).
Hi Hayley, thanks for stopping in to see me! When I first started blogging, my posts were more along the line of essays. But as I’ve gone along, I have revealed more and more of my personal life on here – nothing too terribly exciting, to be sure, but I am finding that people really relate to that a lot. I’m finding that we are all in the same big boat in so many ways. It’s nice to get comments from people who understand what I’m going through and who can either sympathize (which makes me feel better), give me advice or just let me know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. That said, I miss my essays and I need to stop being so lazy and start writing some more of those pieces for my blog.
The great thing about a blog, though, is that it is yours and you can write whatever you want. If you choose later to write more about yourself, that would be great – people are endlessly fascinating and you are too. Maybe you don’t feel fascinating, but that’s just because you know yourself pretty well already. But I found that by sharing about myself, I learned that there was more for me to know about me. By expressing yourself and working through thoughts and feelings and opinions and viewpoints, you have to re-think them. You validate and clarify some, you realize that others are out-dated or false or sometimes just not what you really think or feel at all. It’s lovely to grow as a person!
I like your blog and I love the discussion aspect of blogging; it’s the ability of the readers to comment that makes it so exciting. Ultimately, whatever we say is just opinion, and there are plenty of those to go around. Why not sample a few, right?