This was originally a guest post for a Wordpress blog. I'm sharing it after having read @intelliguy's post about @steemit's superiority over Wordpress and what a fabulous community @steemians are. This post was originally written about a year into my blogging journey, and I was interested to see that "my" rules seem to be the universal @steemit rules. Go figure!

Here you are, and I look forward to hearing your thoughts:

Fire is devastating: we had a fire in the mountains above our village last spring. It burned for what seemed like a month and because, to start with, it was in inaccessible parts of the mountain, it could not be effectively fought. So it spread and threatened prime agricultural land and vineyards. So it was with the Cape Town fire which started on the 1^st of March 2015.

Cape Town surrounds the iconic Table Mountain – a national park and a wilderness area – something residents often forget and take for granted. I know. I lived there for nearly twenty years.

So when the mountain burns, as it must, effectively in the centre of a city, the events that unfold are beyond imagination.

Although the mountain must burn - is part of the most diverse floristic kingdom in the world – there is an investigation into the fire. Arson and human negligence must be ruled out. And, while the fire was burning, and homes being threatened there were, of course, people criticising the work of the various fire services, the authorities and the outpouring of support.

A crisis teaches one about humanity and community. The good and the bad. So it is, I have learned in the virtual community in which bloggers “live”. Fiona’s Favourites was started on a whim, and I chose a platform. Little did I know that it is not merely a platform; I discovered that the blogosphere is a microcosm of any community with all the power dynamics and politics that characterise real life.

So, my journey into this new sphere was precipitated by a very simple motivation: friends asked for recipes when I posted pictures, on social media, of dishes that I cooked. On the back of this and years of “made-up” dishes that I often couldn’t replicate and the Husband unsuccessfully suggesting I write them down, Fiona’s Favourites was born. If I am to be completely honest, the conception of Fiona’s Favourites also coincided with a time of very little work and few prospects. Not a good place to be if one has been self-employed for more than twenty years and if one’s area of expertise is quite specialised. So, what could I do to begin developing a body of writing that was quite the antithesis of my professional life? Trawling the internet and freelance websites all seemed to suggest that a blog might be one way. I might, if I were to find the right "recipe", even make some money out of it (that, is still a pipe dream and not really a driving force). More importantly, I was tired of the heavy, intense, argumentative type of writing that is my mostly “professional voice”.

I have always enjoyed the writing process. Writing, for me, has been both healing and cathartic at different times of my life. Not that any of that writing has been shared – with anyone – it was not written with a reader in mind. So, the prospect of personal writing was one thing, but how to walk the fine line between personal and private was quite a challenge. The Husband is intensely private and cyberspace, the great unknown, is potentially full of dragons and many-headed monsters. He is also fiercely protective of what he sees as my intellectual property: “You can’t just put your recipes on social media and the Internet – they’re yours!”

A “website” that indicated that they are “mine” seemed to be a potential compromise.

My first posts were tentative and quite sterile, and I was aware that recipes are two-a-penny on the World Wide Web; just typing up a recipe is, in a word, boring. This, and actually knowing, almost all my life, even if they are now in all parts of the world, or so I thought, resulted in my, almost sub-consciously writing “around” the food.

And then I ran into a friend in the village.

“I really enjoy your blog,” she told me, “I love the stories!”

I was blown away. I didn’t even know that she had been following the blog!

Knowing that people eat with their eyes, photographs of the food I cooked were important. Pictures also tell stories and, in text, they play an important role in breaking up dense material. I have also long “fiddled” with taking pictures and when we moved to McGregor, I began looking at things around me with new eyes. I wanted to capture and share what I saw. So, with that, the content began to go beyond what I had originally planned.

Initially, I was nervous. Would “my” readers like the change? Well, again, I learned something – people began commenting and the stats told me what I needed to know – something’s working, so carry on doing it!

What have I learned about blogging?

The blogosphere is a virtual village, filled with people and personalities, rule makers, rule-breakers, nice people and nasty people (trolls, I learned they’re called) – just like in any community. And they scrap and bicker, live and laugh together (or not), just the same. They live in my computer but came from all over the world to partake of the fayre I shared. We all have blogs; not all of us enjoy writing; we’re all motivated by different things and we certainly don’t always agree. And that’s not just ok, that’s good.

At the core, I’ve learned that Fiona's Favourites is all about my favourite things and that’s what my readers seem to enjoy - surprisingly, to me. From this learning, and from advice from bloggers like Opinionated Man*, I have created a set of rules for myself:

Fiona’s blogging rules

I’m a part time blogger. I do this because I enjoy it – when I no longer enjoy the process, or it becomes a burden, I’ll stop.

• I only claim photographs as my own if they are.
• If I’m not sure of my facts, I’ll check them and acknowledge the source. If I discover that something I thought was true, is not, I’ll correct it.
• The stats interest me; they don’t drive me. I’m delighted with every new follower and every comment is appreciated and acknowledged.
• I follow blogs that interest me, make me think, laugh, or both! I don’t get irritated if I don’t agree with the blogger’s view, or if a topic doesn’t interest me: I just don’t read it. No offence intended and I’m sure, none taken. It’s not realistic to read every post from everyone one follows.
• I comment if I want to, and I’ll share my thoughts. I don’t get mean – there’s no need. Life’s too short for all that negative energy.
• I don’t blog about blogging – on Fiona’s Favourites – anymore. My readers don’t care if that they’re reading my 75^th post or the 175^th. Nor do they really care how many likes or views I’ve had. Why would they? I reserve that for opportunities like this*, and only fourteen months into it, am thrilled with my 200 “likes” and just over 4,200 views from 78 countries.

I couldn’t even begin to pretend to be an authority on blogging.

Life lessons and the blogosphere

I was quite shocked to learn about trolls. Quite naïve of me, I suppose. Still, I don’t get it that people have nothing better to do than to stalk others and to be mean for the sake of being mean. That said, the blogosphere “real” people do look after their own, as we saw when the Opinionated Man was forced to take a sabbatical. People power prevailed and a phoenix is rising from those ashes.

And so it was in Cape Town.

Hilka, who took these photographs, and whose home and family were threatened with destruction posted this on Facebook:

At the height of the terror on Sunday night, I was wondering whether it was worth living here, considering that this has been the 2nd major mountain fire we have been lucky enough to have survived in the 18 years we have lived in Noordhoek. Any brief doubts I may have had have been wiped away by the amazing community spirit and response to the crisis. People have really pulled together and supported each other and the firefighting efforts! I love this place! Wouldn't live anywhere else!

So it will be for the moonscape the fire left on the mountain.

A last word

• This article was originally published on Jason Cushman's HarsH ReaLiTy, who blogs under the pen name, Opinionated Man.

The nom de plume perfectly describes Jason; he is unapologetically so, and often deliberately provocative. All of that said, he is a crusader for new bloggers and very generous with his time and his space. This has been abused by someone who decided to publish something s/he had plagiarised, on his blog - as a guest. As a consequence, Jason has had to deal with the repercussions and has taken the regrettable decision to no longer offer space (and, of course, his time), to guest bloggers.

I don't get all of Jason's posts and yes, there have been times I know I would have been offended if I had read some of them, but this belies someone who has encouraged and supported hundreds of novice bloggers.

I remain appreciative of his time, his space, his tenacity and his sense of humour!

Acknowledgements:

Thank you to Hilka Birns for allowing me to use her photographs. Follow her on Twitter @Hbirns

The photographs of the proteas are courtesy of Boesmanskloof Accommodation, McGregor

Post script: there have been devastating fires in South Africa, again, this year. More devastating than these in some ways. All touched many people's lives; some with tragic consequences. That, though, is for another time.