"SHOULD I BLOG?"

The question was asked on one of those social-networking Websites, “Should I blog?” I wasn’t able to respond (social-networking sites being into this “friending” thing, that I’ve pretty much stopped participating in), but for what it’s worth, here’s an answer of sorts. It depends on your purpose.

Come January, I will have been doing “The Writer’s Blog” for five years, I think. It started as an attempt to organize my thoughts for a songwriting seminar I taught the last two years of the [now gone, and missed] “Moograss” Bluegrass Festival in Tillamook, Oregon. (Yes, teaching songwriting to bluegrass musicians, who mostly play only “traditional” music, is a little like shipping coal to a nuclear power plant. I was surprised the seminars ended up being popular.)

Of course, as a writer on the make, I’m interested in getting attention for the songs I write, so the blog talked about doing that as well—and attempted to be organized about it. That’s where the annual Worklists and regular “reality checks” come in. As a writer and a performer, I am interested in what works, and what doesn’t—just as I am in my occasional gigs as a city manager—and I write it all down so I don’t forget it.

The blog provides another continuing benefit: it’s practice at writing. Each “issue” is roughly the same length, and expresses (more often than not) a complete thought about (more often than not) a single subject. And I do it at least weekly—following that old Internet rule that one’s Website has to change at least once a week to keep an audience’s attention. (I’ve written issues of the blog more often while being unemployed.) The practice writing for space and writing for deadlines made it easier to do the weekly column for the newspaper. (That’s not what got me the gig, however. Knowing somebody was what got me the gig. The practice with the blog just made it easier to do the work.)

I never counted on an audience, and I’d advise the would-be blogger not to count on one, either. The Internet being the amorphous, anarchic critter that it is, I have no idea who’s reading, or why; I don’t even know how to ask. Nor do I have a clue how to “monetize” (as the gurus at Google’s Blogspot put it) what I do. My advice to the would-be blogger, then, is a question: Is there a specific benefit to YOU—without reference to other people (because there may not be any), and without any expectation of financial reward (because there may not be any) in doing this? If there is, do it. If not, don’t.

These days, a lot of people seem to be doing videoblogs (“vlogs”) instead of the old-fashioned kind. I am not that interested, myself; I don’t see (yet) how adding the video component would make me a better writer. It might be good practice using the video equipment (and I could use the practice), so we’ll see. I do want to “do” video, but I want to use it to add a 21st-century component to my songs, nothing more.

UPDATES: No music at all last weekend, and there won’t be any until at least next Saturday. I heard about another open mike in McMinnville, but it’ll be a couple of weeks before I can go. And there’s reportedly a radio station in Nashville that’s looking for original Christmas songs (and I have five), but I haven’t figured out how to reach the Responsible Parties. I get four days off over Thanksgiving, and it’d be nice if there were an opportunity for the band to practice—but I still don’t have confirmation from everybody whether they can do a Christmas show. Time is getting short…

Joe