Start here, and keep Going: Guest Post by Karen Andrews [26.03.2010]
I’ll read anything so long as it’s good, and online writing is full of excellent examples.
Those people who argue there’s nothing worthwhile to read online (and these people are becoming quieter) often remind me of luckless fishermen who cast their lines off a riverbank without first checking the conditions, if decent catches were likely, or if they needed to move spots. Of course if they stayed and something nibbled, they’d perk up. But if the fish was lost, they’d likely feel more frustrated than if nothing had come along in the first place.
I daresay that’s what online reading could feel like for a newcomer to the world, and that’s why it’s a different kind of reading experience than others. The consumer who is used to quick ‘that’ll–do–Google’ searches are poised to miss out on so much. The treasures are found by word-of-mouth, of stumbling along trails and backlinks.
“For the most part, blogs were an obscure part of the cyberspace until the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States initiated a spike in the number of blogs and blog readers who discovered these sites as a way to share their grief and get firsthand accounts of the events of the day.”-
I first came across the above quote a few years ago when I was doing some background research into the relatively short history of blogging and it has always stayed with me. If I supposed Jedanun’s opinion to be correct – or at least plausible – it helped substantiate a lot of thoughts I had been having about the whys people began to write online. In the years after 9/11, as the magnitude of consequence and grief still reverberated, there was a focus on the personal, the homely. Our televisions exploded with renovation/DIY, home and cooking shows. Many of us sought to locate (or re-define) ourselves within this paradigm – if we chose to identify with it. I wondered to what extent this had to do with the intractable roots personal and parental blogging set down at the time, helped by the advances of technology in the form of improved blogging software and faster internet connections.
But now, in 2010, just how have things changed? Is blogging more for personal revelation or gratification? Is it the need to be connected to a community or the desire to be deemed ‘connectable’ by the community itself? It is these deeper questions that keep me intrigued in the process and overall online construct(s), but of course I’m also interested because I write and like to blog. Pair this curiosity with a bit of experience, and the witnessing of many a success story, and it isn’t hard to see why more and more people are turning their artistic vision online.
And why not? The ease of information transmission, of setting up business, of finding and accessing help (or inspiration) when it is needed are all obviously appealing benefits. But there is a danger perhaps when in by crossing the line from amateur to professional, or by being able to make a little side money from your writing, that your voice, your brand, how you use social media, all combined, they shift from being dynamic and compelling to self-serving and banal; if not in your mind, then maybe in your audience’s? It is hard to do, and those writers and artists who I think have done it successfully like Heather Armstrong, Ree Drummond, and Scott Schuman (among others), ought to be commended.
This is part of the reason why I wanted to publish Miscellaneous Voices: Australian Blog Writing #1. The voices and stories contained within were, in my own reader’s opinion, worthy of reaching a potentially different audience than what they might receive online. Not necessarily a wider audience (although I doubt any contributors would complain if that were to happen!), but one that values the written word. I could then go to that fisherman, still seeking his catch, stick the book under his nose, and say, ‘Start here, and keep going’.
-Jesdanun (2001) quoted in Blogging, Citizenship, and the Future of Media (2007) Edited by Mark Tremanye. Routledge: NY
Karen Andrews has been blogging officially since 2006, but can date her online journaling back to 2003. Her site is Miscellaneous Mum and is ranked well so far as those ranking algorithms go, but she’s happier more with the opportunities it has presented thus far. She’s also a published, award winning writer. She also publishes over at Miscellaneous Press.
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