Should "Writers" Be Taken Seriously?

I think it's time to turn some tables. I hesitate to call myself a blogger but I guess the indisputable fact that I am a person with a blog makes me one. I don't have paper publications to my name and that means I'm not a proper "writer".

In the time I've been reading the odd blog and the time I've been writing this one I've noticed that the blogoshpere is being infiltrated by proper writers; fellows who really can write.

There's Sach, a journalist and there's David Blacker with his blog. Even Lakbima has now started a blog here and the time has come for action, or words, which are of course louder than actions or something.

As bloggers we have attained a certain level of competence in our writing and our etiquette. We all adhere some very specific standards and performance criteria and I am concerned that these so called bloggers just aren't down to our level.

The first thing that causes alarm is the undeniable fact that most of these "writers" actually have the audacity to write their blog under their own name. There's not even the faintest hint of being able to hide behind a pseudonym like mine or Ravana's, even though he's been outed to the whole world and his Mum now.

While we spend time and effort convincing no one but ourselves that we remain well and truly hidden behind our pen name, which is usually a name that gives us away anyhow, the proper writers just write and splash their moniker everywhere. This means that they are accountable for their words and can't shut down their blog and start another one up under a different pseudonym if the going gets a bit tough. Pathetic really.

Writers often meet up with each other, face to face would you believe? They talk to each other, organise literary festivals (as we know) and argue, debate and discuss things with their cronies. Bloggers wouldn't be seen dead doing this. We email, we comment and we bitch about each other any way you can imagine in this virtual world but we NEVER meet up or give away our real name.

Then there's the whole issue of smiley's, acronyms and those stupid things like :) and ;) and their billions of relatives. No half decent blogger would be caught leaving a comment on someone's blog without a few of the semi colon bracketed things or an acronym or two. The reasons for this are simple; we bloggers don't have the skill to explain what we mean. We can make a vague attempt at a jokey comment on someone's blog but we have to chuck in a smiley or its equivalent to make it clear that we're trying to be humorous.

Failure to do so inevitably results in someone (always a blogger) thinking that we're serious, which in turn leads to a scientific and factually based online debate on whether Theena's pants were black or white last Wednesday.

Trained journalists and writers spend many years learning how to do convey their meaning through the power of the written word alone, they're a special breed of people with superior intelligence and maybe even a dictionary or a brontosaurus. ;)

The issues of links and frequency of posts are two that I'll bind together, purely because this example in the Lakbima blog beautifully illustrates them both. In fact it is the Lakbima blog. It's one post with just one paltry link. The link isn't even one to Indi's blog and rule number one, that all posts must contain at least one link to Indi.ca, has been broken without the tiniest of thoughts about readership and the number of comments that the post might get.

Even the newest bloggers on the block know that rule number two tells us we should publish a post at least every two hours and the Lakbima blog goes against this too. Only one post, dated January 21st and nothing before and nothing afterwards. It's appalling that a publication can put out something that can masquerade as a blog without hitting these most basic levels of performance.

But the biggest worry is definitely that of literary and grammatical standards. Take a look at this by David Blacker, one of Sri Lanka's proper writers. Do you see any spelling mistakes or poor use of language? (apart from the minor one in which he's misspelled "Carlsberg", but it's probably just a typo).

No, and nor do I. He makes proper use of paragraphs, he ends sentences at the. Correct place. And he knows exactly where to use a comma. He even has the skill to throw in a word in italics, something I've been trying to master for months.

The single biggest problem is one that so many bloggers take for granted. It's a little topic we just ignore totally, many are even foolish enough tot think that we know all about them and use them correctly.

Yes, it's the subject of apostrophe's.

A proper blogger knows the blogger's rules, or should I say bloggers rule's, for the correct use of apostrophes. We really just chuck them in at random places in the average blog post. It helps if there's an "s" at the end of the word under scrutiny and many bloggers operate on the basis that an "s" at the end of a word necessitates use of an apostrophe.

Many will also throw in an apostrophe at the slightest hint of posession in a sentence and equally valid is the approach of removing all apostrophes from a post. It's common for me to read a post and wonder if some chap has crept in overnight and stolen all the apostrophes from it before the blogger has had a chance to read it properly. Then I've realised that we don't read our posts before we publish them anyway.

Proper writers just dont demonstrate that flair for the correct use of the little fellow's. It was all so different back in the 80's before blogs were around much.

There's my case.

Should "Writers" be taken seriously?

Not until they earn their blogger's credentials like the rest of us have had to.