There is a debate among writers regarding the use and purpose of blogging. Some welcome it as a way to write daily, some use it as a marketing tool, some criticise it for quick and bad writing, and some aren’t quite sure what they think.

As a writer, I focus both on short and long works, ranging from song lyrics to novels. A lot of thought is going into each work, no matter how short it might be. Many writers feel the same about their work and will spend hours and hours labouriously editing their words.

On the other hand, blog posts are written rather quickly. I do not suggest that no editing is done, because clearly, there are different ways to blog and some bloggers have a great writing style, but I think it is fair to agree that generally speaking, blog posts are written much quicker than a short story for example.

In addition to that, among writers, there is a historical divide between journalists and novelists for example, between hacks and literary writers. Broadly speaking, the latter normally don’t make much money from their writing but accuse the former of writing quickly and unimaginatively for the sake of churning out fast-lit.

On the surface, most writers and authors of fiction would probably classify blogging in the same category as “hacks”. They might choose to do it for monetary reasons but they don’t see it as “art” or “real writing”.

As the world of blogging is full of “make money blogging” advice, from the likes of Problogger.net and such, it is tempting for writers to set up a blog with this goal in mind.

However, unless you want to blog about insurance products or mortgages brokers, you are highly unlikely to make money. Making money from blogging is linked to advertising and selling your own products. Well, you wouldn’t get much advertising on a blog about your thoughts and stories, and as for selling your own products, we all know that self published fiction books sell very well, don’t they?

So with that out of the way, let’s look at blogging not as a way to make money but as a tool to express yourself, the way it was back in 2005 before this crazy trend of putting advertising on your blog and trying to encourage people to click on your links while not asking them to do so as it would break the rules.

Over the decades and centuries, writers have been known for keeping diaries and journals. Some of them have been published, most often after their death. It seems natural for writers to jot down their thoughts on this and that, to express their feelings about such and such, and to perhaps explore themes for future works.

So blogging is just like having a journal then?

Well, not so quite. A journal is mostly private, at least at the time of writing. Whereas blogging is a public activity, and therefore, is restrictive. There are things you would write in  your personal intimate diary that you would never write in public; if there aren’t, it can only mean that you have very dull thoughts, or no sense of privacy at all (no judging here, but for most of us, this isn’t the case).

Let’s not kid ourselves, blogging isn’t like having a diary, blogging is publishing. In fact, don’t you hit the “publish” button on your blogging software to make your writing available for all to see?

Blogging could be a format. You can write novels, poems, short stories, articles, essays and many more things. So writing a blog could be just another format.

There are many, many different ways to blog. You can mix fiction with non-fiction, you can write any number of words you want, you can revise it, therefore altering your work after it has been published, or choose not to, you can make it an hourly, daily, weekly, monthly routine, but then change the routine whenever you want, you can mix it with images, videos and sound.

Sometimes, blogging might be the same as what you would write for a magazine, like a review, or a column, and the blogging platform just enables you to publish it rather than having to convince a magazine editor. Sometimes, it can be the same as giving tutorials and lessons about your favourite subject, by choosing to write how-to articles instead of doing one-to-one teaching offline. Most often, it is a mix of different things.

Back to you, the writer. Not the blogger, but the writer. The one who writes stories or articles, whether they are published or not. The one who likes nothing better than telling the story, whether real or made-up.

Do you need to blog?

No you don’t. You don’t need to write in all formats. For example, many writers will never write poetry, or they might never write short stories, or screenplays.

However, formats come and go. As a writer, the focus should be on the story, not the format. A curious writer will probably want to explore this new format, the blog, explore how to tell the stories he/she wants to tell with this format.

Each format as we know it has got at least decades, if not centuries, of traditions, of fashions, of rules to follow and to be broken. On the other hand, blogging has got a few years, blogging is still a baby, a new-born.

This may be scary for the writer who relies on books telling him or her how to write a novel, or how to plot a screenplay. But for me, I find it refreshing and exciting. I don’t know where blogging is going to go, I don’t know what form it will have in a few years. Heck, I’m not even sure what to do with it right now. But exploring a new format is a privilege that few generations of writers have had, and I’m not about to dismiss it.

Tags: writing