Why Blog?

So Jen Singer has this post on her blog exploring all the reasons--including unimaginable fame and untold fortune--that might possibly be the motivation for some people to blog. The whole time I was reading the post, I thought about this blog.

I also thought about the question Jen asks. Why, after all, do I blog?

It's not because I'm expecting some book publisher or movie producer to discover my incredible untapped talent and offer me an eight-figure contract. It's not because I'm expecting some CEO to be cruising the net and stumble upon my blog, realize the potential I have for saving his company through stupendously effective corporate communications, and offer me an eight-figure contract. I'm pretty certain neither fantasy will come true. I figure my odds of winning the lottery are better.

So why do I do it? The reason is simple: I love to write.

Writing is both my vocation--that is, my job--and my avocation, my hobby. I enjoy writing. Okay, I love writing. It's really the only thing I've wanted to do as a profession. I don't tingle with excitement when I sit down at my desk these days, but I still get a kick out of knowing that I make my living by writing.

So if I make my living by writing, why blog?

Blogging, at least the way I blog, is just like keeping a journal. As thousands of teachers have attempted to explain to students in hundreds of writing classes, a journal is not a diary. While a diary is an often emotional recording of the daily events of a life, a journal is a daily exercise in writing. Some journal entries might be essays while others might be character sketches or bits of dialog or descriptions of a place. Most journal entries are exercise.

Exercise is good. As any honest writer in the corporate world will tell you, we don't necessarily write every day. There are days that you spend in meetings, or on phone calls, or doing everything imaginable except writing.
It's like my post "Beating the Blank Page," in which I recount the story of John Steinbeck warming up before writing. Steinbeck probably understood the need to exercise his writing on a daily basis, just to keep that muscle in shape. That's what I'm doing here. I'm just doing it in a way that allows anyone to read the result.

Like publishers, producers, and CEOs with eight-figure contracts.