Iended last year with a dour projection suitable for a dark winter's night. I'd like to start this year with encouraging signs more suitable for a springtime of renewed possibilities. I believe the encouraging signs are real, and as a reader I delight in that belief.
Today's conversational software and collaborative technologies may have an unexpected and welcome side effect: the renascence of the writer. Mindful, literate, cogent, interesting, readable writers are emerging from unexpected sources—and net media helps such writers to emerge.
Systems like wikis and collaborative ratings tools can bury individual voices through shared editing and sound-byte communication. Whatever Wikipedia's strengths, its articles lack the clear voice and narrative coherence of the best signed Britannica essays—precisely because Wikipedia articles are unsigned and not subject to one cohesive edit. Wikipedia articles strive toward accuracy and even precision, but rarely achieve eloquence.
Similarly, forums and other conversational media tend toward brevity, immediacy, and argument, as do comments within blogs and email in general. Even here there are exceptions—the rare eloquent user review at IMDb or Amazon. Unfortunately, such gems often appear under pseudonymous user account names. The writing may shine, but the author is still hidden.Blogs change the game, though not for everyone. If the 90:9:1 rule applies (as I believe it does), you can assume that only about 9% of internet users have anything useful to add to other blogs—and only about 1% will use blogs long-term for self-expression. Of that 1%, most will never rise above the mundane, rarely displaying writing skills beyond straightforward sentences and brief paragraphs. Some blog advisors urge precisely that style of writing, arguing that blog readers don't have time for deeper stuff anyway.
One percent of internet users still accounts for 10 million people. Let's say that around 10 million people actually keep their own blogs going, which sounds about right, removing splogs, dead blogs, corporate and media blogs, and other pseudoblogs from the count. Apply Sturgeon's Law in the original and more charitable reading: 90% of everything is crud. That leaves a cool million writers with something to say and the ability to say it well. Most of those writers would not have emerged through traditional channels.
Some would have, and some were established writers before they started blogging. However, for most people, writing an article for publication can be a Big Foreboding Deal. Getting that article published can be an even bigger deal. That's particularly true for those most likely to offer unexpectedly good writing in blogs: people with day jobs who don't plan to start a writing career. They simply have something to say and write with care and love for the language and a flair for narrative.
Blogs offer a safe way to get started. There are no expectations, no grading, no rejection letters. Initially, there may not even be any readers. You can start with a pseudonym and add your real name on an About page later, when and if readers appreciate what you're doing. You can start with a paragraph on something of momentary interest, build to a short short story (usually but not always nonfiction) on something that interests you more—and possibly progress to a series of linked posts that, taken as a whole, constitute an essay or story well worth preserving and expanding.
This isn't a fantasy. I've seen it happen more than once and I'm seeing it more often. People I know have been invited to write articles based on blog content. (I've even helped make that happen.) People have been recruited to write books based on the literacy and thought shown on their blogs. That includes "blooks"—books from blogs—but it also includes entirely new books whose writers might never consider writing a book (or be considered for publication) without blogs as proof that they could write well and sustain that writing.
I follow hundreds of blogs within and around my field. I glance at most posts on most blogs—but when Bloglines shows new posts by certain bloggers, I know I'll read the entries with care, learn from them, and enjoy them. When the opportunity arises, I'll mention them as possible writers or speakers in other venues. I know that others are doing the same.
Net media and conversational software allow the many to participate. From that many, some are emerging as bright new writers. The renascence of the writer benefits us all.