This is a piece that was intended for Slate, in response to Sarah Hepola’s piece, linked below. After sitting on it for too long, it was no longer timely enough to pitch (nor, let’s face it, would it likely be accepted) so I’m posting it here. Enjoy.

Why even though I’m late to the party, I’m starting a blog. Again.

“You’re starting a blog? A blog? Now? Why now?” That’s what I hear in my head when I think about starting a blog in 2006. It feels to me something more like deciding to start a car manufacturing company, or a new bank, from scratch. Why bother? The big guns are doing the job better than I ever will, with better writing and expertly written coverage of the topics I’m interested in. And I don’t consider myself competition– more like a fly on a rhinocerous.

The blog world is not what is was in 2000, or even 2003. It’s cliche but truthful to say that things move fast online, and most of today’s popular blogs are mature websites with established writers at their helms. The cutting edge days of blogging are officially over when the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Washington Post all have bloggers on the front pages of their websites.

I should clarify what I mean by blog. If I wanted to write an online journal and tell all my friends what I did today, and how rad the new Dresden Dolls album is, and how Taylor totally got into a fight with his girlfriend right in front of everyone at the arcade, well, look. That may be a blog, but it’s not the kind of blog I’m talking about. I’m talking about blogs that are carefully written, are edited or at least self-edited and have some central conceit to them. Also, I mean blogs that are read by people who are interested in the topic without necessarily knowing, dating, previously dating, going to school with or working at the Dairy Queen with the author(s) of the blog.

There are dozens, maybe hundreds of blogs that fit my criteria, and they are heavily trafficked and updated daily. These blogs have thousands of readers. make a profit on advertising, bring muscle to political causes, shine lights on trees that the media can’t see for the forest. I don’t want to be the next Kos, the followup to Talking Points Memo, or the New Wonkette.
But I do want to write, in depth, about different topics that hold my interest. And for a young writer starting out, as I have recently learned, there is no better arena to be heard in than the blogosphere.

The goals for my blog should explain why I feel the need to start one. Like Sarah Hepola, who wrote the Slate essay that inspires this one, I am a freelance writer, except I have zero bylines to my credit. That’s right, I’m “just starting out.” I know, it’s precious.

For readers who are wondering how a writer without any credits to his name gets one, the answer is something like getting to Carnegie Hall, whatever that is (kidding): practice. Every day, knowing that the food reviews, music writing and other story ideas I’m working on will probably never be published, I pick up the pen (or sit at the keyboard) and write drafts. Then, I write pitches, trying to sell my ideas to editors. Although I’ve only been at it for for a few months, I’ve come up with a few pieces that I love, that I would pay to have published.

If I were an editor, I ask myself, would I go with the known quantity, or the unknown? Would I trust that the undiscovered band an unknown writer is pitching 800 words to me about is really that great, if I have no idea what his other tastes are? Would I listen to a restaurant review from a freelancer with whom I’ve never eaten lunch? While the pessimist in me wants to answer all these questions in the negative, a solid maybe is actually closer to the truth. Editors seek out and publish new writers all the time, but things really have to line up right for that to happen; it takes more than a hunch.

Maybe the most important factor in an editor’s decsion to offer a new writer a chance to write a story for him or her is having at least a guess at what the finished product will look like. For writers with articles to their credit, it’s easy to see that they have what it takes. For me though, right now, the best bet is to keep running this blog.

So what if every news media outlet in the tri-state area has already covered the re-opening of the Shake Shack, a new but already institutionalized part of any New York City eater’s pantheon of burger joints? [Note: This essay has been in cold-storage, written before the Shack's recent troubles.]

When I write about it at my blog, and file it under food reviews, I’ll write it as if The New York Times itself called me and asked if could cover for Frank Bruni this week.

When I put down a thousand words about the amazing band I’ve seen twice now, the one that sounds like James Brown, Franz Ferdinand and Willie Nelson got thrown into a remix machine, it won’t matter that they aren’t signed to a major label, or any label at all.

What will matter is if I do a good job writing the story, and if eventually, I can point to this blog, much like a writer can point to their clips folder, to convince an editor that I am capable of writing the story they need today.

I once had a blog, from July 2003 to February 2004. I haven’t looked at the archives since then, but I remember calling it the Wealthy Industrialist’s Quarterly once I tired of the original name, Hipster Cowgirls. And I used it for anything, like an online corkboard. I tacked up excerpts of short stories, observations about my life in Washington, DC, reviews of movies, and music and bands.

I had categories called beauty, politic and historical, and I have no idea what they contain, and no desire to poke through the old pages, saved on my laptop, to find out. Perhaps the reason so many people start, and then stop blogging isn’t writing too much, or writing merely to post and keep your blogdex ranking high, but not being sure what to write about in the first place.

I know what I want this blog to be. Let’s see what happens, let’s see how deep the rabbit hole goes.

“The only obligation to which in advance we may hold a novel [blog?], without incurring the accusation of being arbitrary, is that it be interesting.” - Henry James