The Writer's Pulse

Here’s something scary.

The Inquirer’s Sylvie Barak recently went to SXSW Interactive (South by Southwest, a yearly media festival) and witnessed firsthand the remarkable gathering of the social interactive media elite (?):

“”What are you doing,” this INQ reporter asked a preoccupied-looking individual in the blogger’s lounge during a daily “tweet up” (Think loud, self-obsessed people in weird clothing typing away feverishly on Macs). “Retweeting a tweet about how to be a better twitterer,” came the reply.”

Barak’s article is mostly in jest, but it speaks a particular truth about blogging: many, many blogs are created simply to gain its author money or popularity, and still more are about the regurgitated topics of how to make money blogging, SEO, and advertising (disclaimer: on the other hand, there are very many creative and original bloggers out there).

I have, myself, noticed a particular trend in the blogosphere: blogger A reads several blogs about blogging in preparation for creating his own blog about blogging, which blogger B will use in the future to guide herself toward creating her own blog about blogging, etc., ad infinitum, until the universe ends.

It’s a vicious cycle.

I’d also like to mention the general nature of the blogosphere. It’s an interesting thing with its own systems and accepted roads to success: list and pillar posts, blog carnivals, social networks. There are many accepted, pre-defined ways to drive traffic to your blog which most bloggers at least try to follow, and in so doing create something that often feels disingenuous at best.

As for blogging replacing journalism (the article is titled “Bloggers declare journalism dead“), I don’t see that happening. Blogging can be an extension of journalism, and journalism can and in fact does occur within the confines of blogging, but I do not see one destroying the other.

And I’ve just now realized how stupid the words “blog” and “blogging” really sound.

Kanye West knows a thing or two about blogging. Or at least, you know, delegating.

Vulture, over at New York Magazine, caught up with West and asked him how he’s managed to garner such success with his blog. Here’s a snippet of the answer:

“I have two people that I hired and I tell them exactly what I want — it’s just like how a designer would work.

I tell them, you know, Surface magazine, Wallpaper, Architectural Digest, Hypebeast, Bossip — go to these different blogs and keep on pulling information.

And then they send it to me, and I get like 80 e-mails, and I have to check and go through them.”

Like New York Magazine (and probably everyone else reading their article), I was going to make a joke about how, with a photographer, a staff of writers, and an ego the size of the Horsehead Nebula, you too could be as successful as Kanye West. But really, quite a few popular blogs are written and worked on by multiple individuals.

So there.

Sure, World Of Warcraft might lead to countless hours wasted at a computer screen leveling up a night elf feral druid, but all that time spent soaking in Warcraft lore might also net you the grand prize in Blizzard Entertainment’s new creative writing contest:

“To enter, submit a 3,000 to 10,000 word story written in English and set in the Warcraft, StarCraft, or Diablo universe by April 12 and earn your chance to visit the Blizzard Entertainment headquarters and meet the writers and staff behind the lore seen in the games and books.”

Awards for the competition are naturally geared toward fans of Blizzard’s game franchises. Runners-up become proud owners of signed novel compilations, while first prize scores a free meal with the company’s writers.

You can find more information about the competition at it’s official webpage.

Colm Toibin, author of such books as The Heather Blazing and The Master, does not enjoy writing. From The Guardian:

Toíbín said he hadn’t enjoyed writing any of his books, from his debut The South to his two Booker-shortlisted novels The Blackwater Lightship and The Master. “After a while [writing is] not really difficult, but it’s never fun or anything. With a few of the books, especially The Heather Blazing and The Master and the new novel Brooklyn, there has been a real problem in not having a sort of breakdown as I worked on a particular passage,” he said. – Writing is ‘no fun’, says Toíbín

Sometimes what we write comes from a dark place. Other times, we’re just writing to get the job done.

But that’s the writer’s disease: whether you like it or not, sometimes you don’t have a choice.