I’ve admired Marita’s courage and tenacity for years, as she’s blogged about the struggles of raising her girls who have been diagnosed with autism. She’s incorporated the joys of family life as well, celebrating the achievements along the way. It’s this balance, and frankness, that I find appealing. Marita is also a kind and dedicated member of the blogging community and it’s always lovely to see her (plus, we’re practically neighbours!). She has also joined ranks with other excellent bloggers to recently launch the website Autism: in our own words.
Marita can be found at Stuff with Thing; Twitter; Facebook. Thank you! x
What first brought the concept of ‘blogging’ to your attention? Do you remember the circumstances? Or even the first few blogs you read?
I was a member of several cross stitch communities and started blogging to show pictures of my cross stitch work in progress (WIP). Two of the first bloggers I read were Chiloe from Chiloe’s Corner and Barbera from Mainley Stitching – I still keep in touch withthem both via Facebook, although I have long since abandoned cross stitch for the joys of writing and blogging.
Why did you decide to start blogging yourself?
It really started at first as daily photos of my stitching, but being stuck at home with a one year old who was *very* challenging and a three year old who was very much THREE meant I didn’t get a whole lot of social interaction outside of my immediate family. I connected with other bloggers who also had young children and started reading parenting blogs as well as stitching blogs.
In the beginning, did you ever feel that what you were doing was ‘weird’ or on the fringes? Did you get any negative reactions?
I don’t think I noticed if it was weird or on the fringes because I was already very socially isolated, we’d moved house to be closer to family but I knew no one in the local community other than my inlaws, my children were demanding and the internet was my lifeline, it kept me sane during the long nights of no sleep and the days of screaming meltdowns (all this prior to the autism diagnosis).
I had some negative reaction from the stitching community when I started to post about my personal life as well as the daily pictures of my WIP. That was not the done thing, you blogged about stitching and only stitching but a few other stitching bloggers (like Chiloe and Barbara) were doing the same thing and we became more closely knit through our sharing.
What were the best things about the Australian blogging community at the time? What were the worst things (if any)?
I remember connecting with other stitching bloggers at meet ups a few times, we’d take our finished pieces for show and tell and items we needed advice on. Through those meet ups I connected with mums in my local area. Oh my gosh! The day I realised I knew someone who lived in the same suburb and had small children around my girls age and I wasn’t related to her. It was quite a heady moment, building those connections.
When you look back at those early days – from 2012’s perspective – is there anything you miss?
I miss how fresh and new everything was, giveaways were run as personal gifts, someone would make something and send it to a friend, there was more random acts of kindness flying from mailbox to mailbox. A sense of shared adventure that we knew a secret the rest of the world didn’t, blogging was our Narnia.
In your opinion, is the blogging community better now… or just different?
Different, more diverse, sometimes I think people need to shout louder to be heard. But there is also more power in our collective voices, now when we talk about writing for a cause or to raise awareness we are heard by a wider group of people and not just people who have googled that cause to find out more, but people who may not have been aware of it at all before.
The rising influence of bloggers also has brought about a concurrent examination of money and power. Is there too much emphasis on the latter? Or is it justified?
Power is tricky because it is so easily abused. Sometimes I wonder if bloggers forget that their words are forever, what is said on the internet can not be unsaid. In the early days when there were so few of us we spoke more freely because it didn’t feel so very public.
Where do you see blogging headed? Is it in a direction you like?
I see blogging as the newspapers lift outs and magazines of our generation. I like it.
Will you ever stop blogging?
No plans to at this stage but you never know where life will lead. However if I do stop blogging I want to go out with a giant explosive boom.
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This is day four of my Personal Blogging Series – previous days have included AllConsuming, Magnetoboldtoo and Sleepless Nights.
