Higgins, Isaak, and More Internet Kerfluffle
So the Selkie inflicted Bertie Higgins on me (don’t ask). My response was tongue-in-cheek–so that’s who Don Johnson was trying to be! Now I get it! I was forced–forced, I tell you–to find a little Chris Isaak as an antidote. Ah, supermodel in granny-panties, sand, and a romance video that just screams “trainwreck”. AWESOME.
I’m feeling better, though still weak-kneed. The fever comes back in spates, and when it hits my body is so busy fighting the rest of me just wants to curl up and stare blankly at a glowing screen playing Looney Tunes. The kids have no problem with this, really.
I seem to have missed some Internet kerfluffle. Over at Richelle Mead’s weblog, she makes a very valid observation–the Web can bring together communities, but it also turns them into high school all over again. She’s right as far as that goes, but it’s long been an observation of mine that most people never outgrow who they were in high school. It also seemed to me that the more “popular” someone was in high school, the less chance they have of being really effective in the real world, because they’re expecting that high-school popularity to carry them.
Now, I advance this as a general rule, not as an inescapable fact. The corollary to it is the people who weren’t “successful” in high school tend to mature better and have a better time of it in the Real World. Geeks and nerds do better, whether because they’re used to buckling down and getting through it or because they don’t expect something like “popularity” to carry them. Or for some other reason entirely.
That, however, wasn’t the kerfluffle. Robin Hobb posted a rant–very funny and lighthearted in some places–against writers blogging on her website.
I disagree.
Blogging is valuable. It teaches you how to speak to an audience–if you don’t have good content reasonably well-assembled, your visitors will trickle away. It also (hopefully) teaches you clarity and boundaries–you have limited space in a blog entry, and you need to use that space well. And boundaries, well, everyone has to learn them on the Web. You can’t spread your personal life around on the Net, and getting burned once when you let something loose in a blog hopefully teaches a LOT of writers to be careful about what they say in public.
Hobb’s problem with blogging seems to be with its addictive nature, and with that addiction taking time away from writing. But come on–if someone is going to use a crutch not to write, it’s going to happen whether it’s blogging, surfing Lolcats, looking through the Victoria’s Secret catalog, alphabetizing one’s bookshelf, going out for coffee, writing in one’s diary, playing with Legos–you get the idea. It is not the form procrastination takes one must be on guard against as a writer. It is the procrastination itself. Getting upset at one form just lets another slip in to take its place.
Blogging is, like most things, okay in moderation. Some people go overboard with it, some people go overboard with anything. Writers procrastinate because writing is hard, and the discipline of writing is hard too, easy to slip away from. That’s why it’s called discipline, because you have to stick to making enough time during the day to write. Blogging is neither better nor worse than other siren-songs keeping one away from the job.
That being said, dear Reader, it’s time for me to get some coffee and settle down with revisions. A galley arrived today too, for me to paw through.
Work, work, work. And here I am blogging. *grin* See you ’round, chickadees.
