My name is Scott the Blogger

This is a blog.

I am a blogger.

My name is Scott the Blogger.

I arrange, design, and publish blog posts.

(In another life, I was a shrubber.)

I was going to save this for later in LoBloPoMo, but I don’t have to do that. This is my blog; I can do anything I want! And what I want to do is serve you, The Reader. It might be helpful to you if I clarify the mission of this place as I learn more about what that is. I decided to write and post this today because it will be helpful for me, also.

This is a blog.

You knew that, of course. It’s always been a blog. I don’t think I’ve been ashamed of that or tried to hide it. But I don’t think I was “all in” on the concept. For one thing, like you, I didn’t care for the words “blog” or “blogger” either, even though I’ve been into the “blogosphere” since pretty much the beginning. The words looked and sounded ugly. I got used to them, but then there was the fear. I let myself be influenced by the derision so often applied to this wonderful new literary form. I was afraid of being “uncool,” and afraid to say it proudly:

I am a blogger.

I grew up in the old world, with books made of paper, written by authors. In my love of reading books and my early desire to write my own, that’s what I imagined. My name in print! At first in magazines, but ultimately, in books. I mostly read fiction and would almost certainly write the same. I would be an author. Of books. The sun would shine through the clouds and the chorus of angels would sing.

When I started this blog, I saw it as a writing outlet: a means, but not the end. Serious writers wouldn’t aspire “just” to blog, would they? A few people may have been doing well with it, but it would be crazy to make the blog be your only aim. What? I’m going to be a blogger? No way.

I still thought I’d write fiction, even as I read less of it every year. Bloggers can write fiction, of course, on their blogs, and there is even the new genre of blog fiction, which I tried. Itsy Bitsy Fritsy may have been a turning point for me in realizing that it might “just” be about the blog. I later tried a couple of direct-to-blog traditional short stories, and I held on to my ambition for longer fictional works on this site, whether blog fiction or simply serialized, but…

I’m starting to think that writing fiction isn’t for me. I don’t believe in my stories. I don’t believe in the people.

I liked much more the writing of “Jake the Bowling Mechanic and Me,” which happened to pop out earlier this year around the time I was working on the short stories. And then with the flurry of posting that started in October with “Reverend Blue Jeans,” I’ve finally come to know — and accept — what I want to be when I grow up. A blogger.

It’s good to have learned this, since I’ve been surprised to find that I am grown up.

I may resist it, and try to call myself an “essayist” or something more lofty like that, but that would be wrong. I’m “just” a blogger. I hope it was obvious that I was kidding with “Content Generator,” but I think now I’ll be serious and call myself a blogger. That’s what I am, and that’s what I do. I blog.

And as a bloggish kind of thing to do, I’m going to close with a “bleg.”

There is some terminological work to do in the field of blogging, for which I need your help. In addition to beautiful words like blog, blogger, blogosphere, and bleg, I think we need at least one more. I want to promote “bloggery” as a word for an individual blog post.

The word is already out there; I’ve found it used in the context of a place that produces blog posts, like a bakery or factory. I like that well enough, but it’s redundant with the word we already have: blog.

The word blog itself has different senses, and is often used to mean a single blog post. Some people violently object to this, but I don’t mind that usage; it’s just fine. However, we still need bloggery and its plural form, bloggeries. So that’s my bleg, that you help spread this around. Because then I — and all Monty Python-loving bloggers — can say:

Bloggeries are my trade — I am a blogger. My name is Roger the Blogger. I arrange, design, and publish bloggeries.