What is a blog anyway?

What is a blog? No, really. The response I got when I told people I was going to start a blog (do a blog? blog a blog?) was mostly, “oh, no, not another blog.” They fear, perhaps, embarrassment on my behalf for when I make public some intimate thought that I shouldn’t have expressed for the world to see. I am well aware of this, and I don’t plan for this to be a diary, or merely a compendium of musings on quotidian happenings. It may interest some to know that my sister has shaved her head, or that I’ve just bought a new guitar, but that is the stuff of conversation, not of blogification.

Now, the blogophiles among you might jump up at this point and say, “no, for the blog is the new conversation; the internet is the new water cooler, etc. etc.” While this may be true, there is one distinct difference between a regular conversation and one that takes place on the internet. When we are talking, face to face, the words are fluid. They exist, then evaporate, staying only in our memory, and are quickly covered by more words, and thoughts that go with them. We naturally filter the parts of the conversation into areas of our brain: throwaway jibes, off-colour comments, inside jokes. Sarcasm is easily detected and taken in context.

When we have a conversation on the internet, whether in a chat room, message board, forum, instant messenger, or blog, the words remain. They are solid, not fluid. Also, they are public. What might be meant for one or two people can be read by one or two hundred, or thousand people. The intentions of the speaker/writer (a significant difference) are easily misinterpreted, especially upon reinterpretation, the luxury of which we don’t have in regular conversation.

The difference is that between speaking and writing. The internet, with its instantaneity, has tricked us into thinking that writing is speaking. But it is not. As a writer, and more importantly, as a teacher of writing, the most important aspect of my work is revision. I tell my students that the difference between a good writer and a poor one is not necessarily natural ability, or education (though these obviously come into play), but patience, and the ability to revise. In essence, it is experience. A good writer is one who has experienced what he or she is trying to tell you, not only in terms of the story, but one who has experienced the work itself, several times over. I tell my students that the more they revise their work, the better their mark will be. It is a hands-on version of think before you speak.

Alan Ginsberg’s philosophy of first thought, best thought seems to have caught on with the bloggists. Not all of them, I’m sure, but among angst-ridden teenagers—the Live Journal set—and young people on some of the track and field message boards I frequent, for example, the idea of revision is completely lost.

What this amounts to is a lot of unfiltered thought. More professional blogs (like the Star’s hockey blog, or Maisonneuve.org’s columnists, or the Pun Gents, to take examples close to me) avoid this trap because they are heavily edited. They aren’t just thinking out loud. There are plenty of good blogs out there, and they all have this in common. I am trying to avoid this trap as well, by filtering myself. As I write this it is Thursday morning. It probably won’t see the light of blog until tomorrow afternoon. If nothing else, it gives me the time to spell check (don’t get me started on that—another post regarding r u l8 and lol and the like is coming, too) Perhaps this takes some of the edge off. Well, edgy is not really the goal. Thoughtful, insightful, even wise is the goal. That takes time. Time is something we have plenty of, though the instant online culture tries to make us believe that it is scarce. It’s not. Every minute we get sixty more seconds to fill with distance run, or whatever else. Think about it.