5 Ways That Blogging Is Awesome!!!!!!!!!!

(image via wikimedia)

It’s easy for bloggers to be negative sometimes.   In this age of social media, video creators on YouTube or Instagram get a lot more attention than writers who merely blog.  Independent bloggers like us can put a lot of time into out writing, but our audience reach can be more limited than that of other platforms.

Face it, a lot of people would rather watch videos or listen to podcasts than read blogs.  It can be frustrating. But I don’t like to be negative for very long.  Blogging is still awesome, so awesome that I don’t mind using a few exclamation points to express it!!!!!!  I would ALL CAP MY ENTHUSIASM, but I don’t want to be too obnoxious.

Here are five reasons why blogging is awesome (just in case you didn’t already know).

1. Blogging is physically easy.

Writing used to be a physical chore.  Writers had to physically hold a pencil or a pen and physically write out each word on a sheet of paper.  Even worse, back in the really old days, writers had to dip quills into ink and then they got beaten by monks if they made a mistake.

I’m not sure that ever really happened because there’s no ancient video footage of monks beating writers who made mistakes.  If there’s no video footage of an event, I’m skeptical that it ever happened.  Then again, back in the 1970s I saw nuns rap student knuckles with rulers, so if  nuns in the 1970s were doing that, I’m pretty sure in the really old days monks did much worse to young writers who made errors on their parchments.  After all, nothing inspires perfection like the threat of mild violence.

Even when writers didn’t have to worry about hyper-critical monks and nuns, using a typewriter could be frustrating.  If you weren’t a good typist, you spent more time making corrections than actually writing.  The most frustrating weekend I ever had was during my senior year in high school when I had to type out my own term paper for English class.  An entire Saturday was spent making corrections with white-out or retyping pages altogether.  My mom, who typed 70 words a minute, said it taught me a valuable lesson, to always have a few spare bucks lying around to pay somebody to type my essays in college.

Blogging now with a computer/tablet is much easier than using a typewriter, pencil, or quill, and we don’t get beaten by monks when we make mistakes.

2. Bloggers can get an instant audience.

20 years ago, if I wanted an audience, I had to join a writer’s group, and even then, I had to wait until the next meeting (which could have been a week, two weeks, or even a month away, depending on the group) before I received any feedback for my writing.

Now, writers can get instant feedback. With blogs, Twitters, Instagrams, ebooks, and much more, writers have a bunch of choices of how they want to write.  As long as writers are patient, we can eventually get an audience.

To be honest, when I started Dysfunctional Literacy, I didn’t get any feedback for about six months, but that was probably because I didn’t deserve any feedback.  When I received my first “You suck!” comment, I knew I was finally doing something right.  When a writer hasn’t gotten any feedback for 20 years, “You suck!” is exhilarating.

      3.  We bloggers can write what we want.

Nobody can tell us what to write.  If I want to write a 60-episode blog serial about a crazy ex-girlfriend (who had a lot of cool qualities), then I can write a 60-episode blog serial about a crazy ex-girlfriend.  If I want to write a blog post about Scott Baio appearing in my dreams, I can do that too.  I can even write about the repercussions of trying to talk like Donald Trump.

No editor can tell me that I can’t write what I want.  No outrage mob can influence a spineless editor who has control over what I write.  This blog is mine.  I am my own editor.  Being my own editor might be like a lawyer who represents himself/herself, but I don’t care.  This blog is mine and mine only.  And that’s awesome!!!

      4. Bloggers can be anonymous.

Some people complain about anonymity on the internet and how it allows people (usually trolls) to misbehave without any real repercussion.  To me, anonymity is essential because it keeps me from getting fired.  Most people who get fired for online writing lose their jobs for posting/writing/tweeting comments that are on the “wrong” side of political issues or hot topics of the day.

The getting fired issue seems to be getting worse too.  Years ago, people would get fired for stupid stuff they wrote that day or the day before.  Now people are getting in trouble for stuff they wrote over ten years ago.  Even worse, there are internet researchers out there who gleefully look up old stuff and try to get other people fired.  In an age of getting fired for internet writing, it’s great to be anonymous.

Bloggers don’t have to show their faces either.  Sometimes it’s good if writers don’t show themselves.  Words by themselves leave a lot for the imagination, and readers can be disappointed when an interesting writer looks like a boring, everyday schmuck.  Plus, if you’re an anonymous writer, nobody bothers you in public.  When you crave attention, you can write.  When you want to be left alone, you don’t write.

If you like anonymity, blogging is the best.

     5.  Bloggers don’t have to deal with people.

Even though a lot of writers are borderline anti-social, we sometimes have to deal with others to get published.  Before the internet, if we wanted to get our work out to the public, we had to get past literary agents and publishers.  It was frustrating to writers.  Even if we thought we had something publishable, too much was out of the writer’s control.  Unless we had connections or were willing to network to make those connections, we were most likely never going to be published.

Now, the anti-social author doesn’t have to deal with anybody.  Bloggers can put out their own stuff without anybody else’s approval.  We don’t need connections.  We don’t need to schmooze anybody.  I’ve published my own ebooks on Amazon, and I’ve never had to talk to anybody during the entire process.  True, my ebook sales aren’t as good as I want them to be, but that’s okay because I didn’t have to talk to any literary agents or publishers to get them out there.  That has to count for something.

*****

What do you think?  Why are you glad that you are a blogger right now?  If you aren’t a blogger, have you ever had to use a typewriter?  Have you ever been beaten by a monk/nun for making a mistake while writing?  Have you been fired for something you wrote?  Has anybody ever told you that “You suck!” on your blog (or other writing format of choice)?