Bloggity-Blog

Last year, Warren Ellis began waxing nostalgic on a return to the long-form writing of blogging. He describes them as the “scattered archipelago of the Isles of Blogging.” He’s turned that into a post category, in which he recommends blogs he’s reading (category linked in the phrase above).

This morning, my friend Chuck Wendig posted in defense of blogging, saying that it’s better for our attention spans, for nuance and complexity, and, frankly, because it’s better to own our own online presence.

I’m definitely of the same mind — hence my attempt to restart regular writing here. I have to agree with Chuck on two other points as well:

One, the word sucks. BLOG. It doesn’t sound like anything anybody would want to experience, and it’s etymology, a shortening of “web log” is outdated and obsolete. But that battle is pretty much over. It’s “blog,” as surely as gamers affix “punk” to anything when they mean “genre mash-up.”

Maybe it would be better if we gave it a jingle? “It’s blog, it’s blog, it’s big, it’s heavy, it’s wood…”

Maybe not.

Two, the difficulty of blogging is the lack of immediate (or most times, ANY) response. On twitter, I post something and it gets nearly immediate response, even if only a “like.” Occasionally, it develops into a conversation. Less common on blogs — and so it becomes quite easy to find oneself feeling like you’re shouting into the void, or talking to yourself.

But I’m still giving it a go. I do ask, though, especially on this post, that you pop a comment below. What sort of things would you like to read from me? I’d love to have some idea of a direction I might head.

Until then, I remain your most humble and obedient servant,

G (dot) Skar.