blah blah blogging
Lately I find myself feeling that I have to create something worthwhile if I'm going to write here. I've noticed since I started posting more regularly (and then, just as quickly, stopped) that my posts on this blog are far different than posts I have made on previous online journals. Maybe the very terminology has heralded the difference. Blogging is different than journaling. There is always the potential for an audience (this is also often true of online journaling, but a much smaller audience, I'm afraid). My consideration of audience with the blog leads me to write differently and about different things. I find myself thinking of blog entries as articles, creative nonfiction pieces, vignettes or reflective essays, but NOT as journal entries.I think this is a very good thing. Let's face it--journal writing is pretty narcissistic overall. And that's okay--it's kind of the point. But no one really wants to read anyone else's narcissistic drivel--all that rot about your feelings, your anxieties, your confusion, your low self esteem. It's boring. In fact, I had gotten to the point that it was even boring to me, even as I was writing it.
Blogging is more interesting for a number of reasons. First, I've found a number of blogs that I really enjoy reading. Some make me laugh, some make me think, and the best do both. Reading others' blogs is, I think, a vital part of blogging. It's how the whole concept of community comes about. You read theirs, they read yours, and so on, and before you know it, you've got a nice little circle of friends/writers.
I know that none of what I've just written is ground-breaking stuff. But as I move my use of blogging into my classroom, it's important for me to keep reflecting on how writing for a blog differs from writing for oneself, and to carefully consider the advantages to this form, as well as its potential disadvantages.
Okay, I think I'm done for tonight.
posted by lit lover at
8:58 PM
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