Remember that one place from your childhood that kept you safe and made you feel like nothing bad could ever happen? Maybe it was inside the tent that you crafted out of bed sheets and beach towels in a corner of your bedroom. Maybe it was the impromptu fort you tossed together from tree branches in the woods behind your house. Every kid had one. Some were grander and more refined than others, but they all served the same purpose — a place you could go to feel safe, to be yourself, to reconnect to the things that defined you. All your favorite things were tucked away inside — your favorite action figure, your Game Boy, your stash of Big League Chew and Whatchamacallits.
Writers still have these places today — only the modern versions use hosting services and ISPs instead of floor pillows and comic books. They’re called writer blogs, and they fill exactly the same need that your old tree house did — safe havens in which to retreat at the end of a hard day. Snacks and goodies have been replaced by plug-ins and reader comments, but the cozy feeling is still the same.
Regardless of how you spend your freelance workday, it’s your writer blog that lures you home each night. And even if you don’t post in it daily, like a lover, you still think about it often. After a defeating day of trying and failing to pen the next great Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel, it’s your blog that opens forgiving arms unconditionally, wraps you securely inside a soft embrace and kisses you passionately with eager lips and not a speck of judgment.
Writer blogs don’t care which voice you use. They place no limitations on word count. They don’t frown when you open with a quotation or a question or a gerund. They love you regardless of whether you pound out three paragraphs or thirty. They never surprise you in the morning with a revision request, and they rarely get invaded by wayward siblings bent on destruction.
They just wait patiently as you toil the day away, and then they leave a light burning just in case you decide to stop by around 3 a.m. bearing cookies and coffee.
You’ve met a few of your best friends through your writer blog, and you’ve read some of your most critical feedback. But you’ve also done some of your best work there — typically it was caffeine-induced, but it happened all the same, and no one has to be any the wiser.
If an emotional connection can be described by the feel of smooth, cool keys beneath restless fingertips or by a small burst of joy that rises unbidden when words begin to flow uncharacteristically easily, then writers and their writer blogs are hopelessly intertwined — forever locked in a sort of digital embrace that defies reason.
This is why writers blog. It’s why writers breathe. And at the end of the day, it’s why writers keep writing.
Anne G enjoys researching, social media, landscaping, gardening and home renovation.
