I recently read a Facebook status update from my brother-in-law. He’s a fellow wordy type and his update read:
Blogging is not writing, it’s graffiti with punctuation.
Hmm. Interesting, I thought. I blog.
It’s brought up some thoughts for me in the last few days, and I’ve mulled them over and come to these few questions:
Is there really so little quality out there?
Which leads to: What are you producing, and is it something you’re happy to have on the internets for all to see? and,
What about responsibility?
I believe that we are responsible for what we put out there. We are petitioning people to use their precious minutes and seconds reading something we’ve put together. They could be doing a myriad of other things, including sleeping, daydreaming or catching up with someone face to face instead of footling about online.
Doesn’t that mean that what we write online needs to be a reflection of our best selves?
Each time someone clicks away from our work, it is a small death to us, they leave our work. Maybe they come back regularly. Maybe they are subscribers who read everything. Maybe they happened upon us by chance, and won’t be back. What I am trying to say here is this:
If you only had one post to say something before someone never came back, what would you say? How would you say it? What words would you use? What edge would you approach, and how would you balance along it?
I feel that the best blogging takes us to the edge of someone’s experience, and shows us what it’s like teetering along that edge. It shows us what it’s like in someone else’s skin for a while. That involves thought, and care.
For my money, the choice is: take responsibility for your presence online, or consider yourself a vandal.
I certainly agree with the idea that your social “self” is everything that you do, blogging included, on the net. I tend to blog infrequently for this very reason. I want to chew over ideas before racing ahead with them half-formed. As to “that” post, I would hope that one’s writing would hold someone on its own terms. As viewers on the net, shouldn’t we also have a part/responsibility to play as well – discerning as viewers… or otherwise.
Thanks for the thought provoking post.
Interesting – I do think that life is too short to read things that waste our time, and that we get to decide what that is. Kind of a democratic, autonomous responsibility really. Striving for writing that holds people is a worthy goal, too. Thanks for visiting!
Very true words here. There are only twenty-four hours in a day. If someone is going to use part of that to read your words, make them the best you can produce.
–JW
Yes! Respect for your reader… I think that’s a good position to come from, but going too far in that direction can lead to selfconscious writing. Balance is key!
“Respect for your reader.” I like that.
–JW