Thanks John W for your encouragement on Facebook - here comes some more blogging from me.
Do you remember during your school/tafe/uni days, when the teacher clearly said, ‘now before you start writing your essay you need to define the topic’? Well ... here’s a question for you - where does the word ‘blog’ come from?
Last term, in my ‘Intro to Creative Writing’ class at WEA Illawarra, one of the participants (Everald I think) asked me that same question and I had one of those blank teacher moments which (in case you’re not a teacher/tutor/facilitator) goes something like this ‘Oh gee/geez/, I don’t know, I probably should know.’
My best guess at the time wasn’t correct but it wasn’t bad: my guess was the ‘b’ in blog was short for ‘bio’ as in biography as in writing about one’s life. However, according to blogbasics.com the word blog is a shortened version of the word weblog.
So here I am writing my weblog - yes, you can see how it definitely needed shortening to blog.
I’ve just returned from a Sunday afternoon at Hazelhurst Gallery in Gymea, and for those who don’t know, Gymea is a suburb south of Sydney - halfway between Sutherland and Cronulla. There I spent time with two participants from the Wednesday night ‘Writing Haven’ in Sutherland - Penelope and Carol. Penelope had a sculpture which was on exhibition at Hazelhurst. For those who have attended the ‘Procrastinating Writers - Procrastinate No More’ class at WEA Sydney or Janalli, you’ll already know how vital it is to spend time doing fun artistic stuff other than writing. There’s a giant correlation in the output of brilliant writing and the amount of time spent having fun with other artistic pursuits. Exhibit A is Penelope. So get out your paints, clay, crayons, whatever and get your creative self expressing in a medium other than words. Until next time, ‘keep writing’.