(Following Mr. Beige’s logic, I have remarked previous postings to reflect a thread of topic within the main category.)
There’s no doubt that one of the greatest services provided by the internet and weblogging in particular is to stimulate the creative process within people willing to share their thoughts with the public. And for the would-be writer, the opportunity to practice the craft with the knowledge of being read and appreciated is most often enough to justify the work and time involved.
While I mentioned the intrusion of publishing standards upon the freedom of the weblogs, it doesn’t yet affect the average writer, nor the top weblog authors any differently. Whether a thousand people are reading you daily or whether it’s just your friends, there is no real financial gain to it, even if you’re listed on everybody-who’s-anybody’s site, or if you’ve won the “Best Authored Blog” award. (Some of these, by the way, are ridiculously poorly written and depend upon much overuse of expletives that supposedly create a bonding effect with readers.)
But what the top weblogs sometimes do provide is often excellent daily reads (to me, a weblog that’s sat at October 16th is often not worth keeping up with—if the author doesn’t care, why should I?) and the best part of all, access to other blogs that lead to other blogs and so on that may lead you to an exciting or exceptionally well-written and interesting blog by someone no one’s ever heard of. This is a constantly changing and developing creation of the linking process. When I find a site that I want to go back to, I’ll usually leave a comment (if turned on – the commenting format, not me) to show my appreciation of their thoughts and efforts, and in doing so, it sometimes automatically leaves my own weblog link. This is okay by me, since the weblog author and I may have something in common and they may wish to check out the strange person who made the remark, but it always makes me feel a little guilty as well, as it may appear that I am simply trying to get my own name spread around. But in rethinking this, there truly is no gain other than maybe making contact with some like-minded people, or finding some more great daily reading.
There are so many, many wonderful writers out there. What will weblogging do for their future? Maybe, self-satisfaction is always going to be enough of an answer.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology
But is self-satisfaction enough of an answer? Is it for you? I don’t think it is for me. If that’s all that ever comes of my writing efforts, meager though they may be, I’d be disappointed in myself.
Honestly? Maybe for now it is, because it’s more than I’ve been getting. For the long term–of course, I want to be officially published. I want to see my name and smilin’face on the cover of the Rolling Stone. I want people to read what I say and say, “Wow.” And financially I want it to pay enough so that I do not have to walk around with hands that look like a lumberjack’s and practically give my work away because I’m no good at being a retailer and asking people for money. I want a nice non-associated with a person check coming in the mail that will be enough to justify my time spent at the keyboard.
I think more than anything, I want validation. Money would be good too, but mostly it’s a narcissist thing.
Exactly. That’s what I meant by self-satisfaction. Writers, just as most creative people, have a huge fragile ego. It’s that pull between “I’m good” and “I suck big time” that needs the encouragement of being read and appreciated by more that family and friends. It needs pats on the head from English Professors and other writers you admire and respect.