What Is a Blog?

I’ve been posting to my blog for several years now. I started it to promote my novel Last of the Annamese, published in 2017, and I’ve posted to it almost every day ever since. But a reader recently asked me, “what exactly is a blog?” I’m happy to respond.

According to Oxford Languages, a blog is a regularly updated website or web page, typically run by an individual or small group, that is written in an informal or conversational style. It is a shortened form of “weblog,” a term invented by Peter Merholz, who jokingly broke the word “weblog” into the phrase “we blog” in the sidebar of his blog Peterme.com in April or May 1999.

I have continued TomGlenn.blog/ over the years primarily to encourage people to buy and read my six books—I just did a blog post on each of them a few weeks ago. I have told the story of my tours in Vietnam, where, between 1962 and 1975, I spent more time in Vietnam than I did in the U.S. I’ve talked at length about the weather as the seasons came and went. And I’ve offered essays on the seven languages I speak that led to my travels all over the world. Because I have had such a rich and multifaceted life, I’ve had plenty to write about.

I fully intend to go on blogging as long as I live. As I figure it, that should be another fifteen-plus years. And I hope that someday someone, maybe one of my children, will gather the more significant blog posts to publish as a book.

Meanwhile, I especially cherish responses from my readers. My email address is tomglenn3@gmail.com. So let me hear from you.