Dave at Scripting News shares his opinion on the nature of blogging and podcasting. This particular paragraph caught my attention:

Publishing stuff on the web with blogging software says nothing about the people and what they write. A blogger is person who has an idea, expertise or opinion who wants to convey that to other people. The unedited voice of a person. What makes a blogger interesting is that they do something other than writing a blog. If all you do is write a blog, and if you want or need to make money from your blogging, it’s really hard to distinguish what you’re doing from what professionals who don’t use the web (are there any left?) do…

…let’s be clear blogging and podcasting exist independent of a professional’s ability to eek out a living using the tools of blogging and podcasting.

To be frank, I’m pleased at this distinction between blogging by “amateurs” who share their opinion and “professionals” who seek to eek out a living. One of the fun obstacles of being a writer is writing to a deadline. Blogging helps you get away from that because you AREN’T writing to a deadline, but rather, to a learning imperative. Whose learning? Your’s. Who’s imperative? You. What a powerful self-motivator blogging is. It heartens me that I would never be up writing at 6:55 AM in the morning because I had an article due to a publication or a paper, unless I absolutely HAD TO. And, while there’s a joy in writing to a deadline, it is definitely better for me to be writing because I’m fascinated by what others have to say, and how that is reflected in my life, or resonates with MY opinion.

Am I an amateur? Yes. Though I appreciate the ability of professionals to quickly find their voice and share it, I also like the stumbling nature of the amateur who struggles through the forest darkness into the clearing of understanding, and falls to his knees, grateful to be illuminated by the light from the heavens. When that happens, I can’t help but be grateful that I was there to witness it.

One of the points Dave makes is about being “unedited.” In my early blogging days, I’d wipe out a few entries that I thought were…too controversial. I regretted those actions because, once I brought that into creation, it represented something about me, even if they were fictional (or true). Often, I am tempted to prune everything that is bad out. As I grow older, I find that pruning isn’t an option in real life, except in tightly, over-controlled environments that stifle creativity. . .and that’s no real option. I find that embracing the controversial, the unwanted aspect of ourselves to be critical to my growth as a human being, much less a writer and blogger. And, those insights allow me to go back to what I do to make money for my family to survive financially and achieve more.

Often, the decision to write for publication is a decision to be less authentic, to be artificial. A year ago, that insight was overwhelming and detrimental to my publishing. Now, I’m reminded that writing for publication is a wonderful opportunity to be more authentic, more open, to allow insight and write more personally. I say reminded because when I began to write, being authentic and transparent is what “got” me about being a writer. To speak truth about anything–to myself, to others, to the universe–and discover something about it that I didn’t know by doing so.

Blogging, as Dave suggests, is about sharing your opinion, about writing when it’s not your primary job. Yet, I believe that being authentic, transparent, real is a significant part of being human. . .how wonderful that blogging and podcasting allows our voices to come through.

A leader draws his strength from his team, and Carnegie’s tombstone epitaph, “”Here lies a man who knew how to get around him men much cleverer than he.” Where else but in a blog could I share this insight without having to worry about writing to a particular form?

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