Tuesday, December 03, 2002

Blogging is for Real Writers. James Lee Burke describes what drives a real writer in a piece found in this Sunday's New York Times Book Review. "A real writer is driven both by obsession and a secret vanity, namely that he has a perfect vision of the truth, in the same way that the camera lens can close perfectly on a piece of the external world.  If the writer does not convey that vision to someone else, his talent turns to a self-consuming bitterness. [link]" After reading the criticisms of blogging, both pro and con, this truth, as annunciated by Burke, is all one needs to justify blogging.  Where else can one publish your thoughts, in their purest form, with the least effort required to publish and with the least concessions required to an editor, marketing staff, publisher, and all-knowing, yet faceless, mass market? And, while most writings in the blog space are hardly unique, they do convey a writer's thoughts, beliefs and quest for justice.  Critics who base their deprecating statements upon the foundation of "already been said" truisms miss the point.  You write because you have to write.  You write because it is you.  Originality, or lack thereof, should be considered neither a virture nor a sin. "Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it." - C.S. Lewis, MERE CHRISTIANITY comment [] 9:58:49 AM