Blogging - the New Literature

Have you read any great blogs lately? I've noticed there's a mish-mash of recent books available on every writer blog I've seen, but there's more to writing now in 2010 than just book covers and literary accomplishments.

Blogging has become the upscale reading material of a new generation. And people think these kids don't read...

Let's compare for a moment the knowledge base of yesterday to today's youth. In those years of yore, we had an abundance of newspapers reporting on stories that kept up with society (Remember "The Gossip Page"?) and a whole social status of articles and publications that arrived with the Sunday Paper. But the kids my age weren't much interested in reading such oratorical crap. We, instead, turned on the radio or buried our faces in literary accomplishments that held little life value.

Blogging is the new "connection" for young people. I don't know many who do not read or write blogs. In fact, at very young ages, all four of my children and my three niece/nephews all had a blog of their own. Not only did they write in their blogs, but they read other people's blogs. The best part of their efforts included restating and linking to blogs where they read comments they liked. Reference blogging is similar to reference writing, but more appropriately linked using simple linking tools included on the blogs.

As writers and authors, creating books, magazine articles and other materials that will be used as references and entertainment over the next many generations, we should be thinking about where we can resource our materials. Can we link to other bloggers in our blogs? Can we reference books and other printed documents in ways that our readers can locate those documents for a point of referral? How about a concerted effort to reinstate integrity into our writing efforts by adding references to our work?

Blogging is an important part of creating for the next generation. Let's give them what they ask for with reference points so they can check our facts.