The story of my blog – A SURGEONS SOJOURN

“If a story is in you, it has to come out” – William Faulkner

Reading and writing is a passion for many. Somehow both go hand in hand. Like William Faulkner said in the quote above, all writers want their stories to be heard or in this case read. But not everyone gets the opportunity to GET PUBLISHED as they say. That is where the world of BLOGGING comes in. Unlike your “Dear Diary” where you jot down your thoughts (which are often personal) and then keep them to yourself, blogging gives you the power to tell the world exactly what you want to.

My introduction to the world of blogging was by pure chance. It started around the year 2006. Back then I was still a medical student and we had a group of friends who often partied. Post party we would sit and discuss about all the fun moments wondering if we would remember those moments a few years later and hence I wanted to record all those snippets. The photos that were clicked during the parties were a pain to share as there was no Whatsapp. Facebook & Orkut weren’t so popular and considered unsafe for sharing photos and I don’t think Picasa even existed. After one such party, a friend of mine called me up and told me that the pictures were uploaded on a site called Multiply.com so that all of us could see and download them. I immediately logged in to the site and began exploring it. I was amazed to see that people were writing articles, sharing photos, sharing their personal thoughts and everyone else was commenting and discussing about what was written in the comments section! There were comments on the article saying “great blog” which made me google the meaning of the word ‘blog’! And I was well and truly stunned by the whole process. I wasn’t an author nor did I think of becoming one but I definitely liked to put pen to paper about the little things in life. I immediately created my 1st blog ID www.makingmemories.multiply.com and just doing that was a thrill of a lifetime. At that moment I wasn’t thinking of writing serious articles nor did I think that I would go on to blog for the next 9 years. All I wanted to do was write about our parties, the fun stuff that happened, write stupid stories where my friends were the protagonists and make people laugh.

Though the launch was exciting, the articles were few and far apart because only after you attempt such an endeavour you realise that there’s something called “writers block” . After a while things started getting jaded with Multiply.com primarily because I recognised the fact that the reader base was very poor. My articles were being read by only a few friends of mine and a few outsiders. It wasn’t easy to share links on facebook too at that time. The ones who did venture into my blog were asked to create an account if they wished to comment on the posts & this was really annoying. How many of us will go through such trouble just to post a comment? And so began the quest to find something new.

And I did exactly what most beginners do, I went to Google & typed “best blogging platform” which obviously presented me with a lot of results but something that caught my eye was that WORDPRESS & BLOGGER featured at the top in most of the results. I began the tedious process of going through reviews of both websites. It seemed like an important decision, almost as if my life depended on it! But the more I compared the more confused I got. So I came up with a solution. I penned my article, created ID’s on both wordpress and blogger and posted on both sites. For the next 2 months I didn’t write anything for I was busy checking the “stats counter”, “comments section” of both. Finally due to the ease of use and the layout of the site I chose wordpress with my site being www.ryanfernandes.wordpress.com

That according to me was the best decision I made because over the next 6 years I spent a lot of time on wordpress! Being a medical student and then a PG student it meant long periods without much activity but the views and comments kept me encouraged. I managed approximately 103 articles in those 6 years(not a lot by any stretch of imagination) with 20,000 views. When I began blogging on WordPress I began with gusto, posting articles on a regular basis, & everytime my visitors number increased I was even more thrilled. The themes at that time were very limited & so were the widgets but that was hardly an issue. With my growth, wordpress grew too adding one feature after the other making blogging simple and easier.
Then 3 years ago I came across 2 websites that totally changed my blogging outlook. Indiblogger and Blogadda. We all know about Orkut, Facebook, Linkdin. But this was the first time I became aware that there were websites just for bloggers, filled with articles, writing promts, writing contests, basically a social network only for bloggers. These sites not only ensured that you overcame your writers block due to lack of ideas, it gave you incentives to blog like better readership and prizes(who doesn’t love prizes). I have won pendrives, backpacks, a music system, gift vouchers, a printer but the best of them all an Ipad AIR for my article – He Came, He saw, I Shaved! More importantly it gave me the opportunity to blend in as well as stand out among other bloggers.
The final step in blogging came in November last year when an uncle of mine who followed my blog told me that he would be happy to set up my very own website. After planning for 2 months www.ryanfernandes.in was born on January 1st 2015. This gave me complete control over my site. The articles have been flowing steadily and hence the journey  A SURGEONS SOJOURN continues……………

Update 2017 : The blog is renamed as WANTON SCALPEL