did you ask?

i used to read this blog during the long hours i was paid to do nothing at a certain firm in new york. i think i had heard of it--blog, not firm--through an acquaintance's passing reference. it shows you how little i had to occupy my thoughts, that i could search for the source of this vague reference on the internet until i found it.

it's a niche site, wildly popular among the sorts of people who share the writer's own various conditions of health and personality. it features misty assurances that the writer's life and your own are indeed okay, that the irritations we suffer are epic tests of our mettle, along with descriptions of the writer's favorite friends and favorite foods.

why are people drawn to this kind of reading?

my own story is that i read it as a way of calming my nerves, that were frantic with idleness, as a way of passing the long hours without being engrossed in anything that was not work-related, which would have been unethical. but this is not the kind of acclaim i would post as a reader comment on a blog; this is not the kind of acclaim that is, indeed, posted as reader comments on this particular blog. the readers of this blog, to judge by their comments, are engrossed, enchanted, and occasionally outraged--by what, i cannot imagine. the writer claims to receive hate mail from time to time. (i suspect she might be exaggerating, in order to seem like one of the more important bloggers of our time.)

because i keep a blog of my own, i envy the volume of comments that follow her posts, inasmuch as it indicates an engaged and loyal readership. however, i don't tell anyone that i have a blog, unless they happen to ask to "see some of my writing," having learned from somebody else that i am a writer. i don't tell anyone that i am a writer. it seems, to me, even more self-aggrandizing than the act of keeping a blog. if you are a soldier at war, if you are a missionary, if you are a circus performer, even if you are a schoolteacher--in other words, if you have an experience that few other people have--you have a valid claim to spend time on a blog, letting the world in on your day-to-day. however, if you are a housewife, or a college professor, or an average college graduate like me, spending regular time on a description of your mundane activities seems to me excusable only because cyberspace is an unlimited resource. (...so far as we know.) starlets post on their myspace pages, while actors make motion pictures.

my story is that i keep this blog as a means of practice. i want to be a paid writer--that is, paid to write the kind of material found on this blog--but i don't have the guts to try and fail in the necessary manner. also, it is a useful means of ascertaining whether people truly want to "see some of my writing."

the idea of putting pages in someone's hand seems to me so self-aggrandizing. it will take up space in their hand, on their desk, in their bag. it will lie there reproaching them, good souls that they are, as one more thing that they have to do, that will take only five minutes probably, but five minutes they could spend on something else.

if i was a good writer, i would know it. if i was a good writer, some teacher in my youth would have pulled me aside for a serious talk, like they do in the movies. if i was a good writer, i wouldn't have time to keep a blog. if i was a good writer, people wouldn't have to ask me when they wanted to see some of my writing--they could go and buy it.

people shake their heads at the book industry, and say that it is going under, that movies and television are replacing written literature. they know little. everyone is a writer, because everyone has an idea for a story floating around in their heads. far too many books are published today, and far too few of those are published on the basis of personal merit; rather, they are published on the basis of personal connections that the writers have with powerful people in the publishing industry. books are become little more than a currency of favors owed, because everyone likes to see their own names in print, because everyone would like to see the world of their creation distributed abroad, because everyone has an idea for a story floating around in their heads, because art lessons are hard and pianos are expensive, but everyone knows how to bang a keyboard.