Blah, Blah, Blog - Blogging as Buzz Word

A year or two ago, I saw the HTML header line "We blog for Harry Potter," and didn't know what they were talking about.  Blog?  Is that some weird new word meaning "promote?"  Even when Father Smith announced that St. Michael's had a page at http://smaa.blogspot.com, I was clueless.  Little did I know that in January of this year I would be put in charge of that page, and a dozen other web pages that I would build for the church.

In March, I finally asked Shelly to explain about blogging, and set up this journal.  Now I have this page, a BlogSpot one of my own for the Mâvarin fiction entries, a Live Journal one for keeping up with friends, and of course the one for the church. This one on AOL gets most of my attention. 

Probably like most journalers, I love the freedom and the outlet of being able to write about anything that interests me, and get it read by other people (who may or may not find it interesting, too)  immediately.  I also love being able to keep up with online friends in New York, California, Iowa and even Tucson, just by our reading each other's journals.  If I can just rope some of my old college and Trekker and Whovian and Leaper friends into this movement, we'll really have something going.

And now it seems that American culture at large is starting to pay attention to all that blogging and journaling so many of us are doing.  Just look at this NPR page on Democratic Convention blogging, full of links to blogs and blogging-related stories. The words "blog" and "blogging" are hot buzzwords on NPR these days, even if the full meaning of the word sometimes escapes some of the people who use it.  For example, the guy who posted in a chat room after seeing John Edwards' name being painted on John Kerry's plane is referred to as a blogger, which he probably isn't.  From too inclusive, we go to not-inclusive-enough as fans of political blogging dismiss general purpose journals as being about tooth-brushing.  I've already ranted that rant in this journal, but if you'd like to hear me fumble through an argument in favor of literary and general blogging, you can check out the NPR story link called Blogging: A Web Diary Tour. 

I imagine that if I took the time to Google the news, or did a search on CNN or Reuter's, I'd have similar results.  Conventional media are talking about blogging, just as we AOL Journalers, coincidentally, are celebrating the first anniversary of our particular forum. Aside from politics and celebrity watching, blogging and journaling is the hot topic du jour.

There are already far more blogs than a single person could sample in a lifetime, and, really, how many people would want to try? But among the chatter about politics, raising children, literary efforts, legal issues, art, science, sports, movies, humor, and all the many aspects of people's lives, there are two things you're sure to find if you look at a significant number of blogs and journals:

One: sooner or later, you'll find people who write about something you care about as much as the blogger does, whether it's John Kerry, Turkish Angoras, or the difficulties of your high school years.

Two: you're going to find people who truly write well, with an engaging style and an interesting  point of view. 

Some of these people will probably never find an audience of more than a few dozen readers, which may or may not be fine with them. Others will find their way to a wider readership, topping polls in AOL-J Land or elsewhere, getting linked to by other bloggers, and so on.  A few, because of their subject matter, good writing, and good luck, may achieve quasi-journalist status, go where the general public cannot, and be followed around by CNN.  Or maybe, having written many thousands of words for a growing online readership, some of the better bloggers may, in the fullness of time, end up with a book deal.

Guess which of those I'd like to be.

Karen