I was recently asked why I blog, and I'm happy to oblige with a reply. First of all, you'll notice that I framed this as a request to ME instead of it being part of a larger project in which several bloggers will participate. This should give you some idea of where this post is going.
I came to LA in the mid-eighties, to break into showbiz. I had a powerful creative urge then and I wound up writing 11 screenplays in addition to doing improv and trying a career as a video editor. After a while I decided enough was enough. I was losing money on the attempt to break in, and putting all my energy into the life I wanted instead of the real life that I had. I forswore all creative expression.
It lasted about a year.
Here's the thing about blogging - I have to write. And blogging allows me to write with a low impact on my life, while netting me a potential worldwide audience. If that audience is, in fact, half a dozen people, that's still about twice the number who read the screenplays. And if I'm not making money blogging, I'm not losing any either.
So why do I blog? It's all about me, about my needs. The great thing about having the entire globe as your potential audience pool is there are plenty of people out there who might still enjoy it. In the mid-eighties I couldn't have imagined anything this impossibly cool.
I enjoyed your blog post. Thank you for sharing your reasons for blogging. As a creative person myself, I understand the want and need to get ideas out without the pressure of having to make money off of them. Blogging is an excellent outlet for someone who finds pleasure in the creativity of writing. I wonder if blogging could influence your screenwriting? As you come up with ideas for your blog and get a chance to write about them in a public forum you could find ideas that seem to draw the biggest audiences. Or even discover which ideas are the most fulfilling to write about. A blog can be a sounding board for larger writing projects.
ReplyDeleteTruthfully, anything you do creatively is potential food for every other creative thing you do. It's unavoidable. It's a good argument for diversifying. Even if you never release your album of Brazilian harp songs, it doesn't mean all those ideas will go to waste.
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