Professional writers do have to write what people want — but I’ve managed to write much of what I do want to cover. Writing and getting paid doesn’t, per se, meaning cranking out commercial crap.

carol, thanks for weighing in. “To note: Somebody is scoping me out for a job due to my facebooking, now.” That’s pretty cool!

Just saying.

I am NOT saying that only paid writing has validity; this is a fight you’re choosing to pick and one I am not willing to participate in — because it’s not my position. Work unpaid as long as it pleases you to do so. People like me made a decision in college to work as writers for pay. I don’t need to defend that decision any more than a professional drummer who is being attacked or questioned by a basement garage band for his or her decision to work for money, not bang the skins only for amusement and pleasure.

In all fields of endeavour, there are amateurs and there are professionals; amateurs do it for lve (the derivation of the word) and pro’s for coin. It’s up to blog and print readers to decide which they prefer; many enjoy both.

“As such, it will NEVER be respected in or by the world of professional journalism, where contempt for the everyday seems to be the tribal code that bonds. Because of that, I’m looking forward to a mass exodus of real writers back to real writing.”

savio, give it up. There is no “tribal code that bonds” just as here is no one world of “professional journalism.” Whatever contempt professional writers hold for bloggers is not journalism vs. bloggers, per se, but our wish to see more accurate, intelligent work in any medium. If bloggers are producing that, which they clearly are, terrfic. What’s the beef here?

Well, yes you did, really. You wrote:

“But…people who earn their living writing are rarely eager to ‘give it away’ after they have amassed enough experience and credibility to write for money.”

Compensated writing–real. Blogging–not real.

You’re entitled to that view. There’s probably a lot of validity to it, depending on the blog(s) in question. What I do know is that blogging seems suited to my DNA, if not programmed into it, and I know a select few other bloggers who live in the medium just as naturally. We are able to excel at something that most professional writers simply cannot do worth a damn, and perhaps in part because they fail to recognize blogging as its own medium. If one sees blogging as surrogate newspaper work, or as a great place to put a book blurb, or as something that needs to stay current in order to have any meaning–then you don’t get the medium. By “you,” I mean anyone.

Blogging is a new form of popular expression. As such, it will NEVER be respected in or by the world of professional journalism, where contempt for the everyday seems to be the tribal code that bonds. Because of that, I’m looking forward to a mass exodus of real writers back to real writing. And, given the sheer modern influence of cyberspace, that can only happen in, on, and around the Net. So, naturally, I’m hoping that the Internet evolves to the point of usefully and honestly replacing real-life print. With the real-writing branch of the Internet separate from the blogging sphere. That’s all.

I didn’t say amateur blogs were lousy — if they were, no one would read them. I am personally unable to carve out any more hours from my day as it is to find the great ones. I have no doubt they are there. I read a few by people I admire, and some of these are people who are professional writers. I won’t apologize for that, though.

The issue of whether only blogging for money is valid is *strictly* limited to people like me who write for a living. It’s what we do. I have no appetite to write endlessly unpaid when every hour I spend writing free is an hour I am not writing for income — or seeking paid writing work — or enjoying the rest of my life. I just finished a 75,000 word book (paid), in addition to 844 posts here. I’m tired.

It’s very clear to me that many (most?) bloggers do it out of sheer joy and passion and pleasure – either for the love of writing or finding an audience or finding and creating and sustaining a like-minded community. All of which is great. Do it! Enjoy it! Celebrate those who do it!

But…people who earn their living writing are rarely eager to “give it away” after they have amassed enough experience and credibility to write for money. When I want to write without pay (never), I will do it for my book proposals, which are still a careful gamble on an idea that I and my agent feel strongly will produce income when the book is sold.

Let’s be very clear here. I am not disrespecting people who blog without pay. I’ve done it. But it’s not my goal and I have other avenues to get my ideas out there, albeit going through gatekeepers and writing on issues they approve.

Yeah, I don’t particularly like that view myself.

2) amateur blogs are rambling, mundane affairs, for the most part

They are, sorry. For example, yesterday I did a screen-cap of a satellite map of the oil spill and overlaid some text with arrows that indicated precisely where Pensacola is, where the disaster happened, where Tampa is, what shiny parts were actually oil, stuff like that. If someone Twits something interesting, a necessity/mother of invention thing like that — which I did for my own entertainment before emailing it to a few friends and family — I’m all for it. But usually it’s all, “duh, gee, did you know that some PELICANS got OIL on em? I’m so mad blah de blah no punctuation.” Fuck that. It’s friggin stupid.

A very materialistic view of things, no? The blogosphere is a great place for scholarship, or can be. Free scholarship, yes, but scholarship. Those of us who value scholarship are willing to deal with the little-to-no-pay aspect of it. Clearly, in a fast-track context, we’re losers with a capital L, but some of us are able to make love of self second to love of art and scholarship and documentation. I think I was 10 when I figured out that doing important things and getting an important paycheck rarely go together. Nor have I ever associated fame with doing something meaningful. That is, you don’t achieve one with the other. So… that’s my take.