I have a long way to go

I stumbled across Blogger.com early in 2005. I don’t know how I got there. I can’t remember if I knew what blogs were exactly before that, but I spent some time looking around the site and found out that a blog was a place where I could keep an online journal that others could read. Blogger advertised it as a place where I could publish thoughts. How cool is that? I could be my own publisher.

I knew before I found Blogger that I eventually wanted to make a career out of writing. Blogger was intriguing because it made that first step—getting some of my work out there—so easy. Write, click and I am a published author. For me it sounded too good to be true. Turns out I was right.

By definition, if you have a blog, you are publishing your creation, whether it is pictures, poetry or prose, but I haven’t come to think of it that way. I want my work published, and if I am the publisher it doesn’t count. In no way has a blog made me into more of a writer than anyone else. In the blogosphere there is a common misconception that having a blog makes you a writer. The two aren’t synonymous. I am sorry, but writing just isn’t that easy and blogs have done a lot to undermine good writing. I could be undermining good writing right now. If I want to read some writing, I go to the library. Having a blog and producing a few good, honest pieces does not qualify me as a future author of a book. It doesn’t mean that I will ever be found in the “Literature” section at Borders which reminds me that it takes years, tough, dry years, to accomplish what most of the authors on those shelves have accomplished. They are my heroes. I haven’t begun to know what making a career out of writing really means, but I am sure every other author on that shelf would tell me it is very hard. I don’t think they are lying. Sometimes I wish they weren’t as brutally honest as Hemingway was when he was quoted as saying, “Real seriousness in regard to writing is one of two absolute necessities. The other, unfortunately, is talent.”

For many, writing has lost some of its intimidating, but attractive, allure with the invention of the blog. Everyone becomes published. Everyone writes. C’mon now, join the fad, writing is easy. I am glad that I can read about my friends’ adventures with one click of this mouse, but let’s not get carried away. These blogs don’t qualify us as writers. Heck, I chuckle every time I see the words “The Author” above my name on the sidebar of my own blog. I haven’t earned the title.