Recently, (just this morning) I was reading a post by Catana over at the blog, Capturing Chaos in which she was lamenting that blogging, for her, was a “guilt-ridden process.” I thought, while reading her post, that I knew exactly how she felt. I, too, have often felt a little ambivalent about blogging. Despite the fact that I’ve been blogging for almost a decade, I’ve really only come out of the closet as a blogger in the last year or so. Prior to that, it was just so uncool to tell my other writer friends that I was a blogger.
Perhaps I should explain: I started out writing fiction and poetry ( I still write fiction and poetry). Literary writers tend to look down on all other forms of writing with utter disdain. It’s in our blood. And let’s be honest, shall we: blogging isn’t real writing — it’s psuedo-writing. Of all the things I’ve written in my life, blog posts are arguably the easiest for me to do. I could blog in my sleep, blindfolded and hog-tied. After so many years, this blog practically writes itself. Hell, some days I wake up and see a new post and don’t even remember writing it. So most days, I feel like I’m cheating. Cheating readers and selling my own abilities short in the process. Yet, this other part of me loves doing it — loves the feeling of my fingertips punching the keys and the blissful feeling of progression. Progression of thought. Progression of words. But it’s a bittersweet feeling. Because when I’m blogging, I’m not writing for real (or at least, that snooty literary writer who lives inside me doesn’t think so). I’m not writing stories or poems or even essays in the proper sense. I’m venting and bloviating and opining and disiminating infomation by some form of ego-genesis. It’s not writing — it’s what passes for writing in the post-literate world. That I do it better than a lot of bloggers may make me an above average blogger, but it doesn’t make me a better writer. It doesn’t help me achieve my creative goals. So I feel that sense of guilt and urgency too, like Catana and other who may not be willing to admit it. I sometimes feel as if I’m blogging myself out of existence. That John the Blogger will destroy John the Writer.
I think a lot of this is due to the fact that I’m of a generation that still remembers a time before personal computers and the Internet and blogs. I am among the last of my kind and so I cannot help but have a love-hate relationship with blogs. I cannot help but feel like a traitor from time to time.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t see a time when I will give up blogging. The genie is out of the bottle and there is no re-corking it. But I sometimes do wish otherwise.
Patricia | 29-Jan-09 at 1:45 pm | Permalink
I feel the same. Also, as much as I love blogging, many people in the “real world” see bloggers as some sort of scum. I mentioned to a friend at my gym that I was a blogger and she looked at me as if I had three heads. I’ve never told anyone again (outside of immediate family) about my blogging.
Catana | 29-Jan-09 at 5:46 pm | Permalink
Oh gee, where do I start? This really calls for a couple (at least) of blog posts, not a wee comment. We’re both pre-computers, so I understand where you’re coming from, and that was also the source of my now-dying guilt. But I beg to differ about blogging being pseudo-writing. It can be, but it doesn’t have to be. I’ve read (and written) many an essay that just happened to be a blog post. It can take me days to write a post, working through ideas, and then boiling them down into the shorter format that works best on the web. I’m usually writing to inform, and I’ve learned that beating your web readers to death with long essays just doesn’t work. Better to cover the subject in several short posts. Part of what I’m working through right now is whether those posts are enough to satisfy me, as a writer.
Pauline | 30-Jan-09 at 1:47 pm | Permalink
I’m a total newbie to the blogging world, having just begun the middle of this month. I wanted to blog about the jewelry I design, yet I didn’t want to just blog about jewelry. So I’ve justified the indulgence by also writing about my childhood relationship with my wonderful and eccentric aunt.
I’m finding the experience very pleasurable, although I often wonder who might be interested in reading my blog. And I’ve often thought about writing a children’s book about summers with my aunt and the times I was sent home for behaving badly. Perhaps blogging may offer the opportunity to take the next step.
Amy | 06-Feb-09 at 3:39 pm | Permalink
I also remember when we had no personal computers, and I am also a writer and a blogger. I experience blogging differently.
There is a relationship between what I write online and the other writing I do. Sometimes a blog post can get the writing juices flowing for other creative work–it fires up the engine, so to speak. It also allows me to feel connected to the larger world through writing, which isn’t always happening otherwise.
I enjoy the interplay between my artistic writing and the more conversational voice I have in my blog writing.
Delson | 13-Feb-09 at 2:31 pm | Permalink
Superb post. Very well written. But I must say that blogging has given every aspiring writer a window to lots of readers. Gone are the days when he was at the mercy of Editors now, one can be once own editor and enjoy a fan following just like you John.
I admire your language and the skill of writing. You have a lot of talent. Congratulations on a brilliant post.
Vishal | 16-Feb-09 at 1:23 am | Permalink
I feel the same. nice post
Gabriel Gadfly | 07-Mar-09 at 2:16 pm | Permalink
Maybe it’s because I grew up with computers, but I don’t get the guilty feeling. I’m proud of my blog. Most of my friends know I blog, and a good many of them read my blog on a daily basis.