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William Gibson on Blogging

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the stuff-to-read dept.

The Ape With No Name writes "With Pattern Recognition now out, Gibson talks to the Guardian about blogging, which ones he's looking at and why he may have to quit blogging himself. He's quoted as saying '...if I'm ever going to write another book, I'm going to have to quit doing my blog as I have a hunch it interferes with the ecology of being a novelist.'"

6 of 180 comments (clear)

  1. Blogging ruining his flow as a writer... by Flounder · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Definitely writing a blog is different than writing a novel. Blog is more of a stream of consciousness / random synaptic firing kinda thing. While with a novel, you've gotta keep the entire story in mind while writing.

    Could going back to the stream of consciousness style actually screw you up when trying to write a novel??

    --

    No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova

    1. Re:Blogging ruining his flow as a writer... by tankdilla · · Score: 5, Interesting

      William Faulkner is a famous author whose novels contain moments when one or more pages is a continuous stream of consciousness. It ends up looking like he went off on a tangent and then got back to the story. Takes a good bit of focus to keep the plot in mind while going through someone else's stream of consciousness. I remember re-reading passages several times making sure I didn't miss something important.

      --

      -Look lively. LOOK LIVELY!!! --Mr. Shmallow

  2. meaning changed by John_Renne · · Score: 5, Interesting

    At first I considered a blog as somekind of diary people would keep online. The main reason people would read blogs was inspired by some kind of voyeurism. Nowadays most blogs are just a view on todays (or yesterdays) news. People nowadays read blogs to read the headlines and possibly different opinions .

    I've once started a blog myself. Didn't last too long. The process of starting on including installing etc. was more fun to me than writing in it every day ;-)

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    /(bb|[^b]{2})/
  3. He mentioned this... by Senjaz · · Score: 5, Interesting

    He mentioned this before at least at the book signing in Birmingham if not before then too.

    He said it's difficult because the 'blog provides an outlet for your thoughts and material, it doesn't have chance to accumulate.

    So he doesn't 'blog when he is writing, that gives him chance to fill a store of thought enough to fill a book.

    --
    Don't blame me - this .sig had steal me written all over it.
  4. Niche Blogs by nilepoc · · Score: 4, Interesting

    There is another aspect to blogging that I haven't seen mentioned in this discussion. Blogs can be a good way to see what it is like to pursue something you are considering. That is why I keep my blog. When I figured out what I want ed to study for graduate school, I went out and tried to find some first person accounts of what it is like to become a Nurse Anesthetist. I bet most of you have not even heard of one. Anyway, it was difficult at best, to hook up with one, let alone find out how school was for them. So When I started school, I started a blog to let people know what anesthesia school was like.

    Anyway, I guess I am trying to say that not all blogs are just random thoughts about how someones school lunch smelled like a nursing home.

  5. why blogging is good by mboedick · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The most important thing about blogging IMO is that it allows the average person to easily be a producer on the net instead of just a passive consumer (ala TV). Weblogs also allow for the publication of very obscure and specific content that would not exist otherwise (such as a weblog about various things to wget and curl).

    Sure, there is a lot of crap in blogs, but everyone has something worthwhile to say once in a while. There are a lot of very smart people who write weblogs.

    Those who think blogging is pretentious should read the following entry on Dave Winer's Scripting News.

    Those in power always resist something new that empowers the masses in what was formerly their exclusive domain (such as news organizations suppressing the weblogs of reporters, and elitist intellectuals who think expressing opinion should be their privilege only).