Why I still call myself a blogger.

The last time I heard Jeff Goins speak was at the Declare Conference.  When I wrote my post about what I learned from him during the conference, I wrote that I still call myself a blogger instead of a writer.

I have thought a lot about that.  Why do I balk at saying I’m a writer?  Why would I rather say blogger?  For most bloggers I know, blogging is a means to an end.  It’s their way to get their stuff out there so that they can hopefully, eventually be something else.  When they have built up their readers enough they hope to get a book deal, or sell their art or photography or product they invented.  So blogging is just this small thing in their bigger picture.  That’s where I’m different.  I love being a blogger.  That’s what I set out to be.

I think the feeling is that bloggers in general are not esteemed.  This might be another reason for wanting to be called a writer rather than a blogger.  Oh yes, we’ve all heard the blogger jokes and…they crack me up because, well, I was probably right there with them not that long ago.  While there are all types of bloggers just like in every profession, I assure you that bloggers are not all egotistical people that think you should do everything they dream up, neither are they all people with nothing better to do than tell you what they had for breakfast!  🙂  Those who blog professionally work very hard.  It is an always changing field that forces us to keep learning and growing.  Though I think anyone who wants to do the work can blog professionally, it’s not easy!

The first day of the Declare Conference when I was filling out my name tag, I was chatting with a lady who, as it turned out, was the famed literary agent that so many people were hoping to talk to.  I think she was a little shocked when I told her, “Oh I don’t have any desire to write a book or an ebook!”  I’m not going to say I never will because we know how that little word “never” works right?  I’m pretty sure that everything I’ve said I’d never do, I’ve now done.  Ha ha!  But right now I have no desire to write a book or do anything with writing other than what I’m already doing.

I was never one of those people that love to write.  In school I tried to do as little writing as possible.  When I finished school, I actually taught a creative writing class and never ceased to find the humor in that!  The only writing that I have always enjoyed is writing letters.  Not that I wrote to that many people, but through the years, before texting, email, and the internet, I loved writing letters to my family and good friends.  That is what blogging is for me.  I think of “my readers” as my friends, and I love to sit down and share laughs, joys, and heart aches with them.  When someone really connects with what I wrote it just makes my day, whether it just brought a smile to a face, made someone laugh, inspired or challenged them.  It’s so exciting.

Being a blogger has opened up my world in so many ways.  When it comes to writing, blogging is what I do.  For me it’s not the means to an end.  It IS what I want to be doing.  I’m Esther Irish, wife, mother, teacher, homemaker, blogger.  And I’m very content with that!