The Jeanne Blog

I've come to the realisation that I'm never going to be a successful blogger. I'm never going to be terribly huge on Twitter or Facebook or Blogfrog or any other form of social media either. The reasons are myriad, not least being the fact that I'm just not a good enough writer to make my living at it.

The other main reason, though is that I fail to follow the rules for making your blog/social media presence huge. Firstly I don't follow the 'Rubbish in; rubbish out' rule - I fail to write only meaningful content on my blog. There is a huge amount of Jeanne twaddle here. It's part of what makes me me, this twaddle. Does anybody out there in cyberspace really want to know that Midnight Oil is playing on the telly while I'm writing? Really? Probably not.

The second reason follows on from the first - I fail dismally in choosing my blog's focus. I started out being a homeschooling blog, but homeschooling is not the sole focus of my life. I am madly obsessed with travel, and sometimes my blog sorta transforms itself into a travel log. Recently I had the crochet bug and my blog assumed a vague handicraft fuzziness. I gained some crafty followers around that time, but I probably lost a few homeschoolers, as they wondered idly what had come over me.

Sometimes I become consumed with my garden and I talk about roses and garden design and what's growing in our Kitchen Garden. I take photos of gardenias and the musk parrots in the gum trees. Later in the year when it gets too hot I forget the garden and gravitate inside to the aircon. I start to talk about my passion for cooking. I post pictures of Bruscetta with Homegrown Tomatoes and Basil drizzled with Balsamic and Olive Oil.

Always I am consumed by books. I try to blend my passion for Australian children's books with my homeschooling to salve my guilt that I haven't talked about homeschooling recently, and that's what I am supposed to be - a homeschooling blog. (Right?) My book collection is huge, and it gives me a fantastic amount of pleasure, but like my blogging, I fail to be able to confine my reading enough to transform myself into a book blog. I read a huge amount, but I rarely review my books. Which reader is going to be interested in a children's classic today and a mystery thriller tomorrow and the latest cookery or gardening tome the day after? And yet that's how my reading goes. I have no focus and no plan.

My latest passion is Japanese literature. I have an abiding passion for Japan. I love the country, the aesthetic, the food, the manga. I have read many, many Japanese design and philosophy books, and yet my introduction to its literature is recent. I read my first novel, Murukami's Wild Sheep Chase only last year. From that I've gone on to read six Murukami novels and the works of many other Japanese novelists, mainly under the tutelage of In Spring it is the Dawn, a blogger who is strong enough to confine her blogging to literature in general and Japanese literature in the main. I try not to wax too effusive about Japanese literature because I am not a book blog, and you're probably not interested in what my latest pash is, and yet I can't deny my interest all together and occasionally my enjoyment of a particular novel bubbles over into my posts. Probably a few more followers 'unfollow' me, thinking that I've lost my way. I probably have.

Sometimes I get frustrated that my followers fail to get any higher than 160. Sometimes the number is one or two higher; sometimes one or two lower. I wish I could become a really successful blog to justify the time I take in writing it. But when I stop to think about the fact that my blog is not about anything in particular, but all about me, Jeanne, then I am pretty grateful. I think it is really amazing that 100 or 150 or 200 and occasionally more people tune in every day to read what I have to say about nothing in particular. In fact that is overwhelming.

The thing that makes a great blog - a firm focus - is exactly the opposite of what makes me an interesting person. I am a multifaceted person of many, many varied interests and lots of general knowledge.

I love God, my husband, my daughter, Charlotte Mason homeschooling, travel, gardening, the arts, Reformed Christianity, cooking and dining, Asian travel, knitting and crocheting, children's books, Australian culture, Japanese aesthetics, South East Asian textiles, blogging, huggling by the fire, and now Japanese literature.

My blog is about all of these.

My blog is about me. It is the Jeanne Blog.

The fact that I have any followers at all is really the most amazing thing. Wow.

Thank you for reading. Thank you for following.

I'm so glad I have you as my friends.

(Which facet of Jeanne keeps you coming back? Do tell. I'd be interested to know.)