Reasons to Blog

The Rake points out that the career of Irish author Flann O'Brien's may have been shortened by the "daily dose of vitriol, satire and just plain nonsense" that he spewed in his 25 years as a columnist for the Irish Times. In Rake's words:

So O'Brien wasted his talents producing a daily burst of nonsense under a strange pen name, involving himself in pun-making, parody, irony, satire, and various other kinds of literary burlesque?

Uh oh.

Well, now that we have proof that blogging may be hazardous to working authors, I'd like to offer some reasons to keep take the risk and keep blogging:

1. That sweet 7.5% kickback from Powells
2. You get to be your own editor (oh sweet sanity!)
3. Some misguided individual might try to make a T-shirt of you
4. The chance to touch greatness when a big-time author/literary personality reads your dis of his work and sends you an angry, incoherent e-mail
5. You can easily clear a path to the alcohol when you bust out the "I'm a litblogger" line at parties
6. The small, but significant, possibility that you'll be the subject of a condesceding general-interest piece in a newspaper you disdain
7. Advance Readers Copies!!!
8. There's no easier way to end a bad relationship
9. Apropos #8, it's cheaper than internet porn and carries slightly less of a stigma

10. (Via the Rake) Don't forget the personal satisfaction derived from posting a withering assessment of some schmoe who spelled Finnegans Wake with an apostrophe.

Comments

[amcorrea]

Ironically enough, it can also ward off bibliographic cynicism of the "all books published after 19xx are pure crap/no one cares about literary writing anymore" variety.

[bky]

The apostrophe is correct: the original spelling WAS Finnegans 'Wake. It was sort of an in-joke on the length and difficulty of the book.

[nnyhav]

But pity the poor proofreader who corrected Kinbote's punctuation and spelling in a subsequent edition.