I’ve tried blogging in various forms. Every time and by every measure, I’ve failed.
I also have used every excuse in the book: I’m too busy, I don’t have anything to say, I’m not enough of an expert to create a successful blog, etc.
The truth is, I’m not a blogger: I’m a writer. And, I’m not an expert: I’m a generalist.
Everyone has a voice in this web 2.0 world between their Facebook profiles, Twitter accounts and blogs. That’s fine. I wouldn’t have a voice without those tools either. But, I have a different voice, one that has become more and more unique as the years roll by: that of a general interest writer.
As the tools for publication became more available, the world has shifted from general information to a fragmentation of niche subjects. No longer do people subscribe to or read general interest magazines. Instead of reading Newsweek for their political news, they now read The New Republic if they’re liberal or National Review if they’re conservative. Or even more accurately in this post-print world: Huffington Post and Drudge Report. The same could be said for every fragment within every interest.
In general, people are no longer interested in general interest. They want specifics tailored exactly to their interests; and in the world we now live, it’s available to them, no matter how obscure.
It was in this world I tried to fit in. Tried, and failed.
While I’d consider myself knowledgeable in any number of subjects, there’s not one I would call myself an expert. And to be a successful blogger, the number one rule is to stick to a common subject of which you are an expert. My writings are all over the map. One day I’ll post on some national political issue, the next I’ll have my predictions for the Major League Baseball season and the post after that will feature a local band I enjoy.
I’m neither national, nor local, neither focused, nor expert. The result is a catastrophic blogging failure.
And that is why I no longer post the way I once did, or tried to do. I know I’m not a blogger at heart, and that was discouraging, even to the point of disbelieving in my ability to write.
A turning point in that mindset came a couple weeks ago, however, when by chance I picked up a book while browsing at Borders. That book was Writing Places by William Zinsser, a memoir of a writer and professor that personally hit home. He was the college professor I never had. I also had a conversation with a stranger, who knew of my writing, and said that I was able to portray an event with great clarity, which gave me a confidence boost unlike any other in my lifetime.
Zinsser too, is a generalist. Only, he was lucky enough to come up in a generation that still desired his talent, though he lived through a period where several major national general interest publications ceased to exist, and even left the world of writing to pursue teaching, partly because of the lack of publications for a man of his talent to sell his work to.
What it all comes down to is: is it better to be great at one thing, or good at several? For me, I choose the later. It may be career suicide, but I have a belief that there’s still a deep need and a desire for general interest writing.
And hey, if it is career suicide, I’ll have all the more to write about from my experience.