Blogging is...
The Bloggies
Blogging is instantaneous. To blog is to directly impart energy with intention. A blog is a vivid block of space, with words breathing through it, existing in this intangible dimension we’ve created called the Internet. Ever noticed how Internet is always supposed to be spelled with a capital? Try not to, and see how Microsoft word reprimands you. Possessing an active blog is almost like possessing your own little world where everything exists, as you will it. It’s subtly playing God. There is something about reading writer’s blogs, something compromising that kind of creeps me out about it. The words, they pull me in. But it all feels so fictional. The writer and creator, is who ever I choose to make up, or imagine in my mind—at that moment. It is supremely different than reading anything written off the page because somehow the work is the work and it is meant to stand on it’s own. You don’t question who is behind the words so much. And even if you do, the questions pertain much more to the person in relation to that independent piece of work. There are only the words you see in front of you, not the rest of the words in the form of links, which you have the ability to click on, taking you to more words, and more words, and more… etc. Blogs carry so much more personal and intimate detail on the writer/creators life, that perhaps; it is a little distracting to the reader. While I am reading, sometimes amazingly written pieces, thoughts, rants, bits of information. My mind is somehow straying and I am imagining the person and the constructed ‘persona’ and how they are colliding while sitting in the chair, typing away, maybe sipping tea. Maybe even receiving a blowjob. I am sure that the percentage of people who speak on their phones at home, or are chatting on the net, or are writing their blogs, while simultaneously receiving fellatio, is stunningly and allusively gigantic.
Blogging lets us inside the mind of someone we don’t know and have no affiliation to. It’s kind of weird, no?
Writer Blogs and the physical act of writing.
Even now, as I am writing this—there are pauses. I stop, I think, I ponder. I struggle with the concept of what non-fiction is and if this is a worthy argument. I am unable to write this without my own criticism. University may have poisoned my capacity for expression. This is all in the back of my mind. But, even though these things are not seen, they infiltrate themselves somehow magically into the text. When the writer writes, where are they? They are no longer in the room. They are momentarily transcending reality. However, they aren’t just transported into the computer, onto the screen, paving out the words through some html’d background of snow, with big boots on. They are somewhere in between. And blogging, somehow captures this. People suddenly, are so willing and ready to put themselves out there, in a monumental gesture and claim to the whole world: ‘This Is Me, and I can exist here however I want because you can’t see me and I can’t see you and all you can do is click on Reply to Post.’ Has anyone noticed how many harlequin, romance, overtly Christian writer blogs are infesting the net? Many aspiring novelists and writer’s seem to want to document every little minute of their struggle toward publication. (If they even get there.) But why then, if blogging is an opportunity to have billions of people read your work, do writer’s give into the temptation of photographing their Cat’s or revealing their latest blah blah blahs. Firstly, people have enough of that in their own life, or can log onto non-writer blogs to read that shit. Why do writer’s, think that just because they are writer’s, people are going to care about their every Wow, Wobble and Woe? Secondly, why are there so few writer’s actually using and manipulating the art of blogging to their true advantage. I am not demoting the value in publishing personal journals or the act of sharing and expressing your thoughts, but at least, make it interesting. Have an angle. I could never even imagine posting something that I didn’t think would not just be interesting but also stimulating for the reader, to ask new questions, think new concepts and thoughts. Not every writer’s blog needs a target market. But they do need something to show their audience that it’s going to be worth coming back to their blog. Conclusively, how much do blog writers, truly have to face their audience? How much of blogging is performance? Some new and revolutionary technological medium for performance founded in the millennium of 2005.
The words are imprinted, and they stay there.
Considering the fast pace with which the internet seems to expand day by day, much of the time in part to the struggling, passionate and ‘desperate to reach someone—anyone, out there who might be interested’ blog obsessed writers and artists, how in ten to twenty years is this going to effect libraries, books, publishers and paper mills in general? Is blogging paving a way for writers to become more closely linked with their readers and vica versa? Is technology raising and intensifying our level of communication. Or is it stunting our brains and making our numb asses grow bigger and bigger? Will it ever get to the point where our children will have to document every single little thought or event of their lives on a blog, and could that be considered blogging more than actually living? I don’t think anyone can invision Chapters, Indigo or Borders going bust. I have heard people say that in fifty years, books (and the tangible page) will no longer exist. Or is it that books and literature are of the few things making our social progression possible? Literature is not like music, where sounds jump from vinyl, to cassette tape, to CD and now to MP3. The words are imprinted, and they stay there. The Internet is too changeable to house words solely on it’s own. Without the existence of printed matter, I don’t think the Internet has the capacity to completely reign over any part of society. But you do see cases of young people needing rehabilitation, after being determined ‘addicted to the internet.’ The internet, I suppose, can still be a dimension of personal extension and Blogging reflects this. Notice the green squiggles under my uncapitalized ‘internet.’
Accessibility to harvested thoughts.
Blogging is beautiful and worth it for both writer and reader. Blogs are providing fresh communication amongst the planets inhabitants. The best scenario would be if Blogger created or bought from someone who created a mega fast translator that could translate all blogs into whatever language the reader desired. That would be ultimate accessibility to harvested thoughts from all over the globe. I see people’s blogs and I wonder what kind of people they are and try to imagine this with whatever sources they grant me with.
I invite you to explore the deep mysterious realm of blogs and arrive at your own conclusions as well. Here are some solid blogs with a focus and something to offer, with creators who seem to know what they’re doing. Definitely worth checking out if you need a blog fill, and some websites for good measure.
A seven-year-old prodigy wrier,
www.adorasvitak.com
A redneck with a typewriter,
www.rickquick.blogspot.com
365 tomorrows presents readers with one new piece of short speculative fiction each day for one year, www.365tomorrows.com
www.55-words.blogspot.com
www.sillysod.blogspot.com
www.anfractuosity.blogspot.com
www.funk.co.uk/2005/11/uncle-beer.html
(Ladies and feminists beware, no matter how much you
don’t like it, you will not be able to stop reading…)
www.tuckermax.com
www.peggypayne.blogspot.com
www.notproud.com
posted by Mish-L @ 8:57 AM
1 Comments:
Thanks for including my blog on creative courage on your list. I'll be interested in exploring the others you mention, as well as your own.
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