Showing posts with label freelance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label freelance. Show all posts

Monday, October 8, 2007

Blogging Housewives and Writer Muscles

Do blogging housewives dilute the power of the medium? And, despite being a professional writer, am I also a blogging housewife ('cause I'm a housewife, too, despite severe inadequacies in the cleaning and laundry areas)? Bartleby's Quotations is certainly soon to add any number of phrases alluding to the fact that "any idiot can have a blog." And that can't be a good thing, can it?
I have recently been writing marketing materials for a novel set in a slightly futuristic, computer-oriented world. While learning a ton about code, probability theory, and online gaming--and enjoying a pretty lively thriller along the way--I find myself thinking hard about the role I play in the cyber world.
I use the internet to receive and send work, to do preliminary research, and to correspond with colleagues and friends. And I blog. Why?
I began blogging shortly before a staged reading of one of my plays as a kind of publicity stunt. What I can't quite explain is the continuation of this odd string of commentaries. Any agnostic will admit that extra proof of one's existence on earth never hurts. But, really, why blog? I am not on any sort of political tirade, nor do I have immediate work to promote. This morning I face almost limitless paying work to do, yet here I am holding steadfast to my vow to post, if not routinely, at least often.
It is definitely cool that even I, with my limited technical ability, can keep a blog up and running (even with pictures) but it is not a particularly useful site--not the kind of place one visits for information updates or funky links. Maintaining a blog with actual vital information requires a ton of responsible research, the kind I've got little time for right now. No, mine is just a collection of musings that like-minded writers-on-the-side might find diverting. In postings, I often find myself encouraging readers (if there are any--and here's another questionable point) to get back to their own keyboards and create their own work.
So, does my droplet of a blog, absorbed into the great sea of indiscriminate internet information, dilute the medium? Or should the question be whether the act of blogging makes me a better citizen, or at least a better writer? Because on days when I don't manage a single line of playscript or fiction text all day, if I blogged at least I flexed the muscle. And that, perhaps, is the point of it all. To open your cyber-mouth and sing. Just because you can.