Blogging versus writing

I continually contemplate the prospect of doing some serious writing, like a book. I have always resisted the desire to pursue that path, but it continues to intrigue me. Meanwhile, blogging seems to be at least a partial substitute for a large-scale writing project. One question is whether blogging complements traditional writing efforts and reinforces good writing skills, or whther blogging is a distraction and possibly may have negative consequences for any serious future writing efforts. I'm simply not sure.

A number of years ago I decided that writing a book was not likely to be a successful effort for me. I concluded that a successful and truly satisfying bookwriting project would need to:

1. Have a clearly targeted audience, a demographic to actually buy the book.
2. Be a real labor of love, since most bookwriting projects would be unlikely to financially do much better than cover the advance payment. If you manage to earn minimum wage for your hundreds of hours of work, consider yourself lucky.

For me, for now, blogging is something to do to convert ideas in my head into a form that others can read.

I enjoy briefly sketching out simple ideas, rather than weaving a complex quilt as would be required for a full-scale book project.

I have also considered essays as an intermediate form between simple blog posts and full books, but haven't pursued that route either, yet.

I'll continue to contemplate the prospect of writing a book someday, but for now, blogging seems to fit the bill for me for my writing interests.

-- Jack Krupansky