How Blogging Changed My Life

An inspirational true story. 

I’ve been blogging for roughly a month now, and I thought it would be a good time to take stock and reflect.  “Only blogging a month?” the grizzled veterans of blogging might ask, “What insights could such a neophyte have?”  I don’t have much of a response, except to note that if a 15-year old ice skater can write an autobiography, my posting about my blogging experiences is far less audacious.  So here are my reflections:

1. I read many more blogs now.  I read a lot more news articles.  I surf the Internet virtually 24-7 (pardon the pun).  Me and the Internet – we have become one.  Why?  The need for blog grist is immense.  The blog is a hungry monster.

2. I’m beginning to categorize everything I read or hear into two categories: bloggable or not-bloggable.

3. I write with a different voice when blogging than in my scholarship.  More specifically, my blog posts allow me to write in a more informal and witty way.  I really enjoy this.  I like the “blogging me.”  I wish I could meet this person in real life. 

4. I now have a permanent record of my stupid thoughts and ideas on the Internet.  This probably disqualifies me from ever being canonized as a great legal thinker . . . as if that would ever happen anyway, but I always liked having the dream.  Imagine if Oliver Wendell Holmes had a blog and he blogged about Star Wars.  This would take away his gravitas, don’t you think?  On the other hand, his blog would be great dark comedy, and his posts would be quite well-written.  I’d probably bookmark it.      

5. People actually read my posts each day.  Some even write comments.  Who are these people?  Why don’t they have lives? 

6. There is a dark side to blogging.  I think that blogging is more addictive than crack.  If I go a few days without blogging, I start to go into convulsions.  Somebody told me that the best answer to the question, “Why don’t you have a blog?” is “I have a life.” 

7. I now suffer from a new illness – an anxiety caused by not having an idea to blog about.  I will term this affliction blogiety. I worry: “What if all my ideas dry up?  What if there are no interesting articles out there to blog about or even link to?  What if there’s just nothing left to say?”  I snap out of these moments, but they can be quite scary. 

 

8. I’ve learned to express ideas more succinctly and to write more quickly.  I hope that this will have a positive impact on my scholarly writing.  After all, the law reviews are now enforcing page limits, so my days of writing 80-page clunkers are over. 

More thoughts later.  After all, posting thoughts about blogging is a great cure for blogiety.