Why I blog (a response)

When Dan Rottenberg sat me down in his Walnut Street office to interview me for the job of BSR's associate editor, he was flummoxed by one aspect of my résumé.

"But tell me," he asked, brow wrinkling, "why do you blog?"

Dan couldn't understand why a freelance writer like me would blog on my own website when I could be sending my essays to Broad Street Review, which he envisioned as a type of blog itself— a forum where contributors could hold forth before a much larger and probably more sophisticated audience than my personal website could attract, and receive a small monetary stipend, to boot.

I remembered that conversation when I read Dan's Editor's Notebook last week on the "Brave New World of Blogging" (click here).

"Welcome to the Internet," Dan counseled Roz Warren, who wrote about the peanut gallery she discovered when she began writing for the New York Times Boomer blog. (Click here.)

Something tells me part of my new role here may be explaining the Internet to Dan.

Freedom from editors

Why do I blog? A hundred reasons, beginning with having a place to develop my voice and interests without an editor's assignments, policies, preferences and, well, edits "“ and this playground is quite a commodity to a full-time freelancer like me, who works with about eight different editors in any given month.

I blog because no one becomes a successful writer just by writing any more: You have to develop and shepherd your own audience and platform amid the din of the digital age. That means I have to do more than meet my deadlines. I must build and maintain my own brand— separate from any one publication— day by day.

I admit these long-term benefits are uncertain at best. But consider the short-term professional and financial benefits.

My blog (click here) is almost four years old and I'm edging toward 600 (non-paying) e-mail followers. Small potatoes? Probably. But essays I've posted there have been purchased for publication elsewhere. Several editors and one creative director have told me they were persuaded to hire me in part by what they saw on my blog.

Bigotry and profanity

Writing for a blog is hardly— as Dan put it "“ "the anything-goes anarchy of websites."

Of course, any popular YouTube video generates a perilous grotto of comments that reveal the worst of human nature. In the grimy dark of online anonymity, bigotry can sprout like mold.

And since I don't censor or edit dissenting comments on my own blog— except in cases of bigotry, malicious profanity or egregious spelling errors— things can get pretty hectic there as well. Some readers have expressed disgust for me and my work. No one has called for my death (yet), but one anonymous (surprise, surprise) commenter did order me to move as far away from the whole human race as possible.

So Dan is right to warn Roz and any other writer about what it really means to put your work out for public consumption "“ and yes, the Internet's endless, instantaneous, faceless feedback loop has intensified these risks.

My friend's resolution

Many aspiring writers aren't ready for it.

I recently had dinner with a friend who published an e-book novel based on the Robin Hood legend. When an online reviewer railed against the book as plagiarism of an older story, my friend said she was devastated for weeks.

She made a resolution: Never again would she publish any fiction that anyone else could possibly accuse her of taking from another source. But if she really wants to write professionally, her energy for resolutions would be better spent on developing a thicker skin.

Dan seems to find blogs a kind of no man's land "where editors and gatekeepers fear to tread." But website comments are the least of my worries as a professional writer. Unpredictable editors, acres of pitches and deadlines, touchy readers and snippy sources are my biggest concerns, just as they are for print writers.

Pros vs. amateurs

This isn't to say I don't love my work and the people I meet. I just don't blame the Internet for my journalistic woes.

Ultimately, even online, you're the curator of your own experience. If the comment section is too woolly for you, you don't have to read it— even if you wrote the article in question. And plenty of blogs are well worth your time.

Dan pinpoints a major truth about bloggers when he calls them "amateurs." Many bloggers do it not for money but for love. In the process they've found something the professional commentariat often lacks: passion.