Blogging Addiction

I knew there was a reason I spend way too much time blogging:

Says Andrea Curtis, a Toronto writer:

"I’m sure I’m not the only writer for whom cruising the lit blogs is a bit like eating a chocolate bar — it seems like an innocuous enough treat sitting among its kind on the convenience store shelf, but even as you take that first bite, you know you’re going to regret it. You can’t possibly stop with just one section, so it’s going to be a spiral into gorging on the whole thing, feeling squishy, undisciplined and, just to amplify the misery, the deep lowdown of a sugar crash.

When I take a break to check out Bookninja or Bookslut or Bookangst 101 (not to mention Buzz, Balls & Hype, Maud Newton and Babies are Fireproof), I know that only an act of enormous willpower will prevent me from spending the rest of the day hopping from author interview to gossip about who got a book deal to the Guardian newspaper’s list of top 10 books for six- to eight-year-olds to a literary bitch session, sinking deeper and deeper into the endless possibilities of internet procrastination. Plus, I’ll spend an inordinate amount of my so-called break wondering how it is that these by-and-large funny, talented and enthusiastic bloggers have the time and mental space to create their blog and maintain careers as freelance writers, poets, novelists, editors, etc., while I can barely squeak out 1,000 words before collapsing into bed at 9 p.m.


And yet, it’s infinitely appealing for a person who loves to read and aims to write to slip through the wardrobe into a parallel world where other people actually care about books; where Michael Chabon and Jonathan Lethem aren’t just boldface names but animated superheroes forced to face the wrath of supervixen Candace Bushnell (check out the comic strip Patricia Storms of Booklust has created to take the mickey out of Chabon and Lethem’s obsession with comics); where people, lots of people, get exercised, really exercised, when someone complains that women writers are boring and too focused on the domestic. Many of the lit blogs are also unusually well written and even nice to look at (two qualities the blogosphere is not generally known for). They’re like mini-magazines with attitude and quirk to spare — and they actually provide time and space for new writers who may not have a forum elsewhere. (Though with news of blogger book deals plugging up the bandwidth, this is becoming less and less the case.)

There’s no question poking around the lit blogs makes me feel less isolated, as if I’m part of something larger than my 10 x 10 room. "

(Via Maud Newton)