It's time for a new meme! My good friend Jason Strate (twitter | blog) wants us to blog on the 15th-ish of each month. The first topic is: Blogging. Why did I start blogging? Why do I keep doing it?

Why I Started Blogging

It was 2009. I realized there was a SQL community. I was reading blogs, lurking on forums, attending a user group, and tweeting. I was also asking a lot of questions. I even managed to come up with a few solutions. Once, I was telling my friend Ted Krueger how I solved a problem. Ted asked, "Jes, that's great - why don't you blog it?" I started thinking about it. I wrote down problems I solved. I wrote down things I'd learned.

But I didn't want to blog. What did I know about SQL? What could I blog that hadn't been written about before? Why would anyone ever read my blogs? These are the thoughts I had that held me back.

Eventually, I gave in, and started my own WordPress blog. My first blogs were, quite frankly, awful. It was almost nine months before I wrote a blog post I'm proud of today. It takes a lot of practice and a lot of effort to be a good writer, and be a good blogger, particularly on technical topics. But I persisted, and I watched my writing improve, along with my blog stats.

For historical record: my first Reporting Services blog post.

Then Ted had a bigger challenge for me, and started asking me to join LessThanDot.com. Again, I didn't want to. There was no way I could blog at the level they were - they were far smarter, and more experienced. But Ted didn't give up, and in December 2010 I started here.

Why I Blog

I love helping people. I love solving problems. I love writing. Blogging enables me to fulfill all of those.

It helps me document the solution I found to a problem. It helps me learn new things. It helps me contribute to the awesome SQL community.