Writing and WRITING
I have often heard denigrated the efforts of people who compose blogs as the work of substandard writers or not-writers-at-all. I, for one, am tired of either the false modesty or the blatant snobbery of these statements--for the most part I find much of what is published via blogs as readable or more readable than what is published by large commercial concerns. Admittedly, there is no great undying prose--but read your local newspaper and look for the same.
What blogs have that almost no other source provides is authenticity. The writing touches the real concerns of real people living ordinary lives--people who would not think of writing a novel or publishing memoirs or even composing essays for publications. Some of the work is extraordinarily well-written, some just so-so. But it is real writing, where writing begins--in the heart. Nearly all of it is unpolished to a greater or lesser degree, but that does not render it useless, less-than-other, or not worthwhile.
The efforts of bloggers should not be so lightly denigrated and derided. The process of composition is the same, and blogging might be likened to your local dinner theatre--it's not Broadway, but it can be as entertaining, and is often infinitely more accessible.
So, put away worries about better, worse, worthwhile, not worthwhile, and write, write, write. You have an audience already built in, talk to us. And don't tell us how worthless what you are doing is. Don't trot out an endless stream of writers from the past who look down their noses at everything from Shakespeare to "lady novelists." It's tiresome, and, to some degree indicative of false modesty. We don't have anything to apologize for and a great many have much to be proud of.
Now that I finally got that off my chest, we return to local programming.
