Sure, it's not just reading, but ...
Obviously, I do quite a bit of writing - even blogging. And of course Lessing
had something rather pejorative to say about that as well. Still, it's rather
unclear just what she really understands about
the process, considering the fact that she seems upset not only with blogging,
but with "blugging" as well. Not wanting to be condescending, I ran
a Google search on the term, thinking that perhaps it was something that I was
still unfamiliar with.
The term really exists, though hardly as much of a phenomenon. I found only about
3500 references to the term in my Google search, and probably a rather substantial
number of those aren't exactly about something related to blogs. Some have suggested
that "to blug" is to write a blog post that plugs yourself -
i.e., blatantly advertises something you've done. My favorite definition of the
term comes from grootie
who, over two and a half years ago, examined various usages of the term, and also
reported on what were to his mind his own rather unsuccessful attempts to write
to a blog. He ultimately concluded (he seems to have stopped blogging about half
a year later):
So therefore I rest my case and claim that blugging shall henceforth be the act of intermittant, or otherwise poor quality blogging. In an age where generations are propogating online personi, and blogs are ever more popular, it seems only right to have a word to describe the very large portion of that content that lacks quality, originality, genuine humour and so much more.
Blogging, however, isn't something that's opposed to reading, but rather, for
some of us at least, an unavoidable corollary to it. On one
forum that discusses Lessing's lecture one person comments:
I wonder what Ms. Lessing would make of people like me? I (occasionally) have
to move piles of books to get to my keyboard...
And on numerous occasions I've quoted Will Richardson who somewhere
remarked:
When I’m not blogging, it isn’t because I do not have time to write, it’s because I do not have time to read.
Go to: Accessed via the internet, of course, or
Go to: Should that really make headlines?, or
Go to: The internet and some of its discontents.