It’s just struck me.  Two years of blogging now, and this morning I finally got why it is that blogging still mystifies and wrongfoots me.

Because I still think of it as writing.

Sure, I make a few concessions to the medium – short paragraphs, fewer qualifications, a single line here and there – but, essentially, it’s still writing.  Writing transferred to a screen, and squished and trimmed to fit between virtual covers.

Not writing, blogging

What I’ve missed is that blogging is not writing.  Blogging is marketing.  Even when the blogger is not selling something.

Blogging is marketing on a few grounds.  One of them is the unmediated relationship between blogger and potential readers.  The “unmediated” is crucial because it means the authority and trust which precedes and underwrites the relationship between, say, book and reader, has to be negotiated neverendingly and “on the fly”, as it were.

It’s also why it’s always potential readers.

In fact, it’s far more accurate to say that blogs don’t have readers so much as consumers.  Yet here’s me still thinking unconsciously I’m dealing with readers.  No wonder I’ve resisted the word blogosphere.

I still think of writing and readers because that’s how I think of myself.  I consider myself a reader first, and a writer, second.  And I consider myself a writer even I’m not writing, or haven’t written anything for months, much like the character in a novel by Vita Sackville-West, unpromisingly titled All Passion Spent, who considers herself an artist even though she’s never painted anything in her life.

Can you imagine a blogger calling himself a blogger if he didn’t blog?

“The rules”

I do so many things that ignore all the blogging “rules” I should call this a non-blog, and I would if iconoclast were not the second most popular persona in the blogosphere (the most popular being guru, of course).

I regularly express doubt, use big words and — fatal sin — indulge my love of satire and irony.

So I don’t stand a chance in the market.  Luckily, however, I get enough from this writing to satisfy me.  And I’d much rather contend with the “anxiety of influence” good old Harold Bloom attributed to aspiring writers, than the “anxiety of consumers” true bloggers bear.

To have written

Below are some of the posts I’ve most enjoyed writing in the last year, with some commentary on each.

But first a word about this matter of enjoyment in writing, or better still, plain fun.  What makes it fun to write?  What makes it fun to have written?  The answer is something Andreas Kluth was debating, as productively as ever, on his blog the other day.

What makes it fun to have written is that the words written were those one intended to write, and only those one intended to write.

W G Sebald, a writer’s writer, puts the matter beautifully:

That weavers in particular, together with scholars and writers with whom they had much in common, tended to suffer from melancholy and all the evils associated with it, is understandable given the nature of their work, which forced them to sit bent over, day after day, straining to keep their eye on the complex patterns they created.  It is difficult to imagine the depths of despair into which those can be driven who, even after the end of the working day, are engrossed in their intricate designs and who are pursued, into their dreams, by the feeling that they have got hold of the wrong thread. (1)

The five posts below were among those I most enjoyed writing because I didn’t get hold of the wrong thread.

The post on blogging (yep, can’t leave subject alone)

In December, stupefied after a few too many wines at Christmas and 10 minutes too long on Copyblogger, I said my piece in a post titled 9 ways to become a popular blogger (Or, how to suck your readers’ brains out).

It’s tickled me ever since that Copyblogger displays a prominent link to my satirical post under the post in question; like a fly in the ointment, a worm in the dream.

I tossed this off in a couple of minutes, and it was fun.  If I were going to write it today, I’d add:

10. Advise readers not to take any advice (be sure to include this in every “how-to” post you write).

11. Only write about the topic “how to become a popular blogger.”

Click here to read 9 ways to become a popular blogger (or, How to suck your readers’ brains out).

The post on a “story that has everything”

The aforementioned Andreas Kluth commenting on this post got it in one.

The story of Etheldreda, a Saxon princess, who established a monastery on the Isle of Ely in England in 672, has everything that makes a good story:

- Danes, Angles, Saxons etc
- sex (including the lack of it)
- Plague
- tawdriness
- legacy

It’s also a story that’s been close to my heart for years, and I was pleased to be able to do it some justice.

Click here to read Last redoubt of a Saxon princess.

The post about transformation, no less

In September I wrote about the difference between change and transformation.  It’s been one of my most popular posts, and I assume it’s not just because the title has one of these simplified oppositions that work well in the blogosphere.

I felt inspired and moved writing this post, and I am still moved reading it today.

Click here to read Change vs Transformation.

The post that broke my heart

For years I’d cherished the excerpts from the notebooks Gustave Flaubert wrote while sailing down the Nile in 1849.  Then, earlier this year, I read that Florence Nightingale had been on the same boat for part of the trip.

I was amazed, and thought it time to share some of my cherished excerpts.  Unfortunately, the post sank without trace (though it was saluted at by Thomas as it slid under). This broke my heart, and had me pondering afresh my taste for earthiness and vulgarity.

It also had me pondering if that photo really did suggest arseholes.

Click here to read Adventures on the Nile with Gustave and Florence.

The post about knitting (of course!)

If you’re still reading, no fear.  This last one is a list.  What is it about us and lists? And what is it about me and knitting socks?  This post explains it. A little. And I managed to squeeze in Hercule Poirot, a personal hero.

Click here to read On not fondling one’s moustaches.

*****

So, that’s it for this year’s roundup.

Here’s to more fun writing, and remember, dear readers, may your socks always be handknitted!

Notes

1. W G Sebald, The Rings of Saturn

Images: W G Sebald (top); Ely Cathedral (middle); Flaubert in fez (bottom)