No, Not Everyone Has a Blog

I was a teaching a class recently when a student asked me, “Why should I bother starting a blog? Everyone has one?” It was a good question. As someone who spends more than the average person on writers’ websites (I interview these people, you see), it does sometime appear that nearly every writer in the world – published or otherwise – has a blog. They’re free to start, and operate with no gatekeeper other than the writer’s willingness to plunk him or herself down and tap out a few hundred words. Which is exactly why everyone does not actually have a blog. It’s one thing to start a blog, and to post an entry or two or three or twelve, but it is another thing altogether to keep that blog alive with regular posts every week. Most of the blogs I visit on author’s websites begin with a rush of entries that soon dwindle to one every two months – if that.

This is not a criticism. Most blogs are begun, I think, because the author believes she should have a blog. Either some publicist indicated as much or the author looked around and said to herself, “What is wrong with me that I don’t have one of these? Better get going. They’re free after all. Why not?”

Because humans by and large quit doing things they have to do or are supposed to do. It takes a long time to write a book. Writers don’t write books because they should; they write books because they want to, or because they know they wouldn’t be happy if they didn’t. So if starting a blog interests you – if you think you might love plunking yourself down a couple times a week and writing something for free to share with other people – go for it. There’s always room in the world for one more person to do one more thing they love.