I’ve been thinking a lot about blogging lately. Mostly because I’ve sucked at posting anything for the last few months. It doesn’t have anything do with the anguish of Writer’s Block. I just stopped. The key wound down in my back. My hiatus was voluntary, prolonged, and left me feeling disjointed and crabby. While I was talking about writing but never getting around to it, I learned something about myself: writing is my doppelgänger. If I’m going to get up in the morning I might as well write something. That’s pretty much it.
If you saw the film, Contagion, you might remember Eliot Gould (yes, I know you thought he was dead) and this line:
“Blogging! Blogging isn’t writing. It’s graffiti with punctuation.”
I beg to differ.
A trillion words of wordiness have been written about how blogging:
(a) has made the creative process accessible and global,
(b) just might be the Death Star of writing as an art form,
(c) is probably what killed newspapers (not corporate greed and lousy speculative commentary that whores around as journalism), and
(d) is an opportunity for any narcissist with access to a computer to bloviate on the favored topic du jour.
I beg to differ. OK, maybe not entirely.
When I went to Journalism School there was no blogging. Hell, there were no computers either. If you wanted to get creative you were probably going to be writing Saturday features or be the queen of the recipe column until you either got the pink slip or you died of old age at the Olivetti.
Here’s the point: blogs can transcend corporate greed, family gossip, communal whining, and be a forum for some smashing good writing. I think Indie Albany does that. The smashing good writing part, not the rest of it.
Here’s the best part: Happy Birthday Indie Albany. And many more.
As for Will Shakespeare, the answer to your question is yes.
Phyllis Alberici 
Welcome back, Phyllis. I’m delighted to have you back to celebrate our birthday!
We kept the porch light on!
I love this post. I went to J-school in the infancy of the Internet …well, no, scratch that. The infancy of the Internet was when Adam Curry was heading up the “web presence” on mtv.com, a black screen with white text, no more. I was 12, and I went to a mini-presentation on the Internet with my social studies teacher. I did it under the guise of extra credit, but really? I was totally fascinated with the idea. I still am amazed by it.
So, OK. It was in the elementary years. Blogging was a bunch of emo kids whining about their professors and their would be boyfriends or girlfriends – I was one of them. It was catharsis, but I never considered it could be a career. Had I been 5 years younger, my career path would look a lot different than now. I left journalism early in my career because of the corporate greed and lousy speculative commentary that whores around as journalism. Had blogging truly been the culprit, I could have gotten behind that. I chose another career path, and have not looked back – which, for an indecisive Libra such as myself, is pretty huge. (Ask David – he’ll tell you about how completely *petrified* I was of being “pigeonholed” as a journalist. I look back on that conversation and laugh now.)
For me, at the time, blogging was catharsis, yes. However, what I didn’t realize was, it also was a way for me to become a better writer. Frank McCourt visited my alma mater to sign copies of Angela’s Ashes and ‘Tis. He was delighted to talk to the fledgling reporter from the college newspaper about writing (particularly since she was clearly an Irish-American … *ahem*). He was even MORE delighted to talk to the 10-year-old who wanted to become a writer. “Write every day,” he told her. Write about anything and everything in your journal. It stuck with me, but I didn’t really know what it meant until later on. Writing every day made me a better writer. I don’t do that anymore. I miss it. I miss it more than I notice on most days.
Going back to my fear of being pigeonholed, another quote that stuck with me – “People ask me, ‘why study journalism?’ I tell them, it is the best preparation for life that I know.” Stated by a professor at St. Bonaventure, which I overheard him say to someone else at a conference I was invited to. I should have listened to the quotes I so vigorously tabulated, in those days.
I agree – or disagree. What I need is a voice to text app on my phone because my best posts/blogs come to me as I am fighting five lanes of traffic, blaring classical music on my way to save the world; one poor, underprivileged child at a time. It is all so eloquent in my head and by the time I get to my computer for “fun,” there is simply not much grey matter left to compose a coherent sentence. Yet, I have so much to say!
What, you are saving the world one poor underprivilidged child at a time? Allison, wouldn’t we be better serve collectively, under the guise of “justice for all,” if you would first go after the death penalty? We still haven’t abolished the death penalty, as you mentioned in an earlier comment. It may be too late for poor Mr. Lawrence Brewer, but you may still have time to help John King.
Enjoyed the read…
I remember how in the ’80s, newspapers were folding right and left, consolidating cities into one-paper towns, and desperately turning to pop culture to try to stay relevant. They said that something called “blogging” was coming so they might as well just shut down before it happened.