Writing motivation, part II

Easter egg hunting this weekend in six inches of snow. That was a first for us. The kids were afraid the Easter bunny might not make it with all the snow, but he did. It was hard to pick the eggs up with mittens, but the kids managed it and had fun, which was the whole point.

So I've been thinking about blogging - a growing form of writing. Why do people blog? Talk about narcissistic and navel-gazing. But it's a little addictive too - an easy way to get published, in a sense. Whether anyone reads your writing is another story.

But blogging is an amazing phenomenon to me. A way for the common man to communicate with the world. Bloggers about politics making national news on election night, telling the world first reactions to things. It's a lot crap, in many ways - like they know what everyone's thinking. But people have latched onto blogging as a way of getting the word out - their word out.

Emails have started to kill letter-writing as a way to keep in touch, and historians wonder how future generations will have access to everyday history. Think about how letters during the years of WWII have helped us understand the trials and tribulations of the men and women in the war theaters and those on the home fronts. Emails aren't usually saved for posterity. How will people know about day-to-day life, first reactions to major/minor events, etc. without that record?

Maybe blogging begins to fill in the cracks.

Don't know that it's an answer to why people blog, but, navel-gazing or not, it's a reason to keep it going.