I had a conversation recently with someone, and she was telling me about a play that was being put on at her daughter’s school. She was trying to relay a funny part. It was a play based in the 20s, and one of the characters receives a typewriter as a gift, and she automatically assumes she’s a writer (or something along those lines…). The lady laughed, and said, “It’s like all those people that blog. They think they’re writers!” I nervously laughed with her. “Yeah, those people! What’s up with them?”

I did confess to her that I am one of those people. I think she felt bad, as if she had hurt my feelings, and I assured her she had not. I told her I blog and journal for myself, because it’s therapautic. When all my thoughts are one big jumble in my brain, it helps to put it all on paper (or computer screen). Somehow it makes more sense. We then talked about how writing and blogging and journaling are good ways to pass on our stories to future generations. This then led to discussion of the stories that many of my residents could tell and how it would be great to help them write it down. But that’s a whole other blog, for another time.

Actually, I agree with her initial comment. It seems like lately everyone wants to be a writer. With the explosion of blogging has come a new season of authors. Anyone can create a blog site, and then write to their heart’s content for the entire world to see (or their friends and whoever googles some random phrase on their blog.) And I feel like many of these people are secretly hoping their connections will eventually lead to some big-wig publisher, who will be absolutely astounded at the quality of writing on this portion of cyberspace, and instantly offer them a lifetime book contract, where they can stay at home and sip coffee all day, while pondering life surrounding them and continue to write thought provoking statements to make the world a better place. And get a paycheck. Or maybe that’s just me. I dunno.

The thing is, sometimes that does happen. Take the movie Julie & Julia. It’s based on a true story of a woman who is bored to death with her job and decides to cook her way through Julia Child’s cookbook and blog about it. She is discovered by some publisher, who publishes her book, and heck, she even got a movie out of it. My current favorite blog, Stuff Christians Like, is written by a guy who decided to rip off the website Stuff White People Like. He wrote a few blogs about some quirky things that Christians do. It’s hysterical. And he got a book deal out of it. The book is filled with his blog entries. And it’s brilliant.

Am I hoping something similar will happen to me? I’d be lying if I said, “Of course not. I write for the sheer enjoyment of the art.” Just like I’d love to be discovered by a big record label and be paid to sing all day, I’d love to be discovered by a publisher. Drew has recently begun hard work on his very funny comedy blog, and he joked the other day, “Okay, no hating the other one for getting the book contract first.”

Will it happen? The likelihood is slim. But if you know of anyone looking for aspiring writers, feel free to pass this site along…