Twenty-nine years. That’s how long I’ve been writing things down for the world — or at least whoever happens to stumble onto my corner of the internet — to read.
But honestly? The writing started way before the blogging did.
It Started Before I Even Knew What Writing Was
The earliest memory I have of keeping any kind of record is when I was around eight years old.
I was writing short stories — fragments of stories, really — for comics I was dreaming up in my head.
Back then I had this big, wild dream of becoming the next Stan Lee.
I’d sketch out characters, scribble dialogue, imagine entire universes.
I didn’t know it at the time, but I was learning the single most important skill a writer can have: the habit of putting things down on paper before they disappear.
Then at fifteen, I got into a band with my closest friends.
And that changed everything.
I picked up a cheap journal from a local store… one of those small notebooks you’d find in a bargain bin and I started filling it with everything.
Who we were as people. How each member came to be part of the band. Practice dates. The gigs we played, where we played them, how much we earned. Set lists. Inside jokes. Drama. The whole thing. And because I drew a lot back then, I made caricatures of every single band member inside those pages. Little portraits. Exaggerated noses and expressions that somehow captured everyone perfectly. I was a good sketcher back then.
And then came the lyrics. Scribbled in margins, squeezed between entries, filling every available corner of the page. That first journal filled up fast.
I bought another one.
Then another.
Looking back, I was basically blogging. I just didn’t have a platform yet.
From Journals to the Internet: A Quick History of Blogging
Before I tell you how I made the jump to digital, let me give you a little context, because the history of blogging is actually fascinating — and I lived through most of it.
The term “weblog” was coined by Jorn Barger on December 17, 1997 — “log” in this case nodding to a ship’s log, a written record of a ship’s navigation.
The short form, “blog,” was coined by Peter Merholz, who jokingly broke the word “weblog” into the phrase “we blog” in the sidebar of his blog in April 1999.
Pyra Labs launched Blogger on August 23, 1999. It is credited with popularizing the format as one of the first dedicated blog-publishing tools.
That’s the platform I eventually found my way to. Google purchased Blogger in 2003 and also introduced AdSense that same year, making it possible for anyone to monetize their blog without needing to join a special advertising network.
WordPress launched in 2003 as well, and design possibilities exploded from that point forward. Developers could build themes, and people with no previous web design experience could customize templates and build sites with ease.
By the time I was in my mid-twenties, blogging had become a legitimate career path, a marketing tool, and for many people — including eventually me — a real source of income.
How I Became a “Blogger”
At some point I realized it was just easier to blog on a computer.
Faster.
No running out of pages.
No trying to decipher handwriting you scrawled at 2am. Somehow over the years my penmanship has gotten worse and worse, that should be something I’ll have to start working on in the next few months or year?
And you could reach actual people beyond your immediate circle.
I started on Blogger — the platform, not the job title — because it was the accessible entry point everyone was using at the time.
Free, easy, get-in-and-start-writing with no technical headaches.
It did what I needed it to do, which was give me a home for my words online.
Then my buddy Domz got got me thinking about about WordPress.
He was right, the way friends who know things are always annoyingly right.
WordPress offered more control, better customization, real infrastructure for a site you actually wanted to grow.
So I made the switch, and I’ve never looked back.
The Blogs: What I Run and Why
Today I maintain seven blogs actively and regularly. I’ll be honest with you — it’s a lot of work. But if you want to be called a blogger, you better earn it.
Here’s what I’m currently running:
| Blog | URL | What It’s About |
| Chip Canonigo | chipcanonigo.com | Father. Farmer. Freelancer. My personal blog. |
| Filipino Writers | filipinowriters.com | A community for Filipino creative writers — poetry, fiction, essays, and more. |
| Musika Wabad | musikawabad.com | All good music, wa’y bad. Music gear, local bands, the scene. |
| Hayop Etc | hayopetc.com | Where we love all things with fur, feathers, skin, or scales. |
| Biyernes | biyernes.com | Everyday is Black Friday — lifestyle, tech, deals, and everyday life. |
| Jectra | jectra.com | Health, wellness, and personal growth. |
| Spotify Artist Page | AcidRadius on Spotify | Because I have a band and I still make music too. |
Seven different voices, seven different audiences, one guy writing all of it.
That’s the setup.
And on top of all that, I’m a proud member of the Davao Bloggers Society — a community of bloggers right here in Davao that’s been a genuine source of connection, collaboration, and camaraderie.
It’s one thing to blog alone; it’s another thing entirely to be part of a group of people who get it.
Why You Should Blog: Records, Revenue, and the Long Game
Your blog is a living archive.
I cannot tell you how many times I’ve gone back through old posts and been grateful — genuinely grateful — that I wrote something down.
Details you think you’ll remember, you won’t.
Moments you think are too small to document, aren’t.
A blog is your memory, externalized and searchable.
For businesses, this matters enormously.
A consistently updated blog builds a documented history of your thinking, your growth, your evolution.
It establishes you as someone with a track record — not just someone with opinions.
Blogging for Income: Google AdSense and Affiliate Programs
Let’s talk money, because that’s a real part of this.
Google AdSense is the advertising platform Google launched in 2003 alongside its acquisition of Blogger. It matches ads to the content of your blog automatically, and you earn revenue when visitors view or click those ads.
It’s passive income in the truest sense — you write the post once, and it can generate revenue for years.
Affiliate marketing takes it a step further. You partner with companies, link to their products in your content, and earn a commission when your readers make a purchase through your link. Filipino Writers, for instance, participates in the Amazon Associates program. Musika Wabad covers music gear and links readers to products they can actually buy.
Neither of these will make you rich overnight.
But over time, across multiple blogs, across hundreds of posts?
It adds up.
And it rewards consistency — which brings me back to the habit of writing.
The Pros and Cons of Running Multiple Blogs (5 + 2 = 7)
Look, I’m not going to sugarcoat this. Running seven blogs is not for the faint of heart. Here’s the honest breakdown:
| Pros | Cons | |
| Multiple income streams | Each blog can generate independent AdSense and affiliate revenue | Revenue is spread thin until each blog builds traffic independently |
| Covering more ground | Different audiences, different niches — you expand your reach significantly | Keeping up with 7 different content calendars is genuinely exhausting |
| Authority building | You become a recognized voice in multiple spaces | Maintaining quality across all of them requires serious discipline |
| SEO advantage | More content across more domains means more chances to rank | Each blog needs its own SEO strategy — that’s 7 separate approaches |
| Creative fulfillment | You never get bored — music, animals, health, lifestyle, writers’ community | Context-switching constantly has a real mental cost |
| Cross-promotion | Your audiences can overlap and grow each other | If one blog lags behind, it can affect your overall credibility |
| Record and legacy | You’re building something substantial — a documented body of work | It’s a long game and the rewards are not immediate |
My personal setup: five main niche blogs plus two that function more as extensions of my personal brand and creative life.
The five carry the SEO and monetization load.
The other two keep me grounded in the things I actually care most about — music and the writing community.
Start Small, Think Long
Here’s what I’d tell anyone who wants to start:
Get a journal first. Write on paper. There is something that happens when your hand physically moves across a page that typing doesn’t replicate. You slow down. You think before you commit. You develop a voice that’s yours and not a performance.
I write at least 5,000 words a day just to keep myself sharp.
Not all of it goes public.
Some of it is just movement — keeping the machine running.
But the discipline of daily writing is what separates bloggers who last from bloggers who post three times and disappear.
When you’re ready to go digital:
- Start with one blog. Not seven. One. Master the platform, find your voice, build the habit.
- Use Blogger to start if you want zero commitment. Free, easy, forgiving.
- Move to WordPress when you’re serious. Self-hosted WordPress gives you control, credibility, and scalability.
- Write short pieces first — 300 to 500 words. Get comfortable publishing before you start worrying about length.
- Be consistent over being brilliant. A mediocre post published every week beats a perfect post published once a quarter.
- Then learn to monetize — AdSense first, affiliate marketing second. Don’t chase money before you have content worth reading.
The theoretical understanding matters.
Know why blogging works before you throw yourself into the how. Read about SEO. Understand how content builds audiences. Learn what affiliate marketing actually is before you sign up for programs.
Study the platforms.
Then write.
What 29 Years Looks Like
It started with stories for comics I never published.
Then a cheap journal stuffed with band chronicles and caricatures and lyrics.
Then a blog on Blogger, then WordPress, then more blogs, and here we are — seven active sites, a community membership with the Davao Bloggers Society, and no intention of stopping anytime soon.
I became interested in a lot of things along the way.
Music.
Animals.
Health.
Filipino creative writing.
Everyday consumer life.
And I found that each interest deserved its own space, its own audience, its own voice.
The through-line across all of it — from the eight-year-old sketching comics to the grown man writing five thousand words before breakfast — is the same: write it down. Keep the record.
Tell the story.
That’s what blogging is.
It always has been.
Now go get a journal. Start there.
Buy Moleskine Journal on Amazon
It won’t cost you extra to buy it and I get a nice little commission which helps me keep this website going.
Thank you!
Oh and… it’s my birthday today! And that’s why I’m writing this, as a celebration of life as a blogger for 29 years. One more and I’ll have been writing for 30 years.