Blog or Article?

Sometimes I'm not too sure whether this is more of an article than a blog. This is one of those times. I have tried to analyze the difference between the formats because I write both. However, there are times, many of them, when something I have written for the one format finds its way, comfortably, to the other.

It seems to me that the main differentiator that other writers impose is that blogs are written more from a personal perspective, based on the small scraps of everyday life, whereas an article is, perhaps, written about the issues of the day. The latter with less use of the perpendicular pronoun, I.

As I use I in both formats, without fear or trepidation, and write of the universal from my scrappy and personal perspective, I don't see much difference. Perhaps the only real separation that exists is that which exists between where you read these blogs or articles. If you read them on a screen they become a blog, and if you read a printed version they magically morph into an article.

Does the different title, article or blog matter? Yes, in a way it does, to the reader, not the writer. A blog betokens to many readers a certain immediacy that is not implied by the word, article. The latter word suggests more sober reflection, more time spent in composition. Sorry to disappoint, but for this writer, the same time is spent on both formats. As with all forms of writing, and I try my hand at most, the methods used by different writers are dependent on our ways of thinking and working and not the end use of what we write.

A question I often get asked is how do I make the time to write most days? This is a bit like asking many of you how do you make time for eating or breathing. Writing is what I do, it makes me what I am. Everything else flows from that source. I don't find it any harder than anything else I do, it's an entirely natural process. Sometimes it works out better or worse. As for the time it takes there is no simple answer. Our brains are like a sponge, and are constantly taking in information and mulling over issues, my mother used to call my dad and me, scrambled egg brains. Whether we like it or not we are mentally masticating our world view constantly. My way of dealing with the results is to write down my conclusions and to share them with you, whether it's in this format, or a screenplay or in prose.

I also get asked how I make money out of this and my answer is that this is nothing to do with anyone but me. What I found, in blog and article writing, as with my writing in all other formats, is that you don't write to make money, but if you write reasonably you can and do make some money, sometimes.

Today's offering has taken me about the same to write as it has taken you to read. Someone who bought a screenplay from my then agent said he was shocked he had to pay so much when he had discovered that this particular script had only taken me two weeks to write. My agent, a very wise man, responded, "yes, it took Tony two weeks, two weeks and thirty years before that to learn how to do it in two weeks."

For the next couple of days, here's the more classically blog section, I shall be out of sight as I work out of town taking part in a validation process for a large group of degrees at an English education establishment. I'm confident that will give me new writing opportunities.