Blogging as Crack
I found a link to William Gibson’s blog on diveintomark; he talks about the allure of fan writing:
One of the reasons, I’m convinced, that I’ve been able to produce even the few novels I have is that, almost from the start, I largely swore off less formal avenues of literary expression. The culture of SF, particularly, seemed to me to be studded with truly scary examples of talented writers who had chosen to sublimate their energies in SF’s native (and relatively ancient) fanzine scene, the geniuses of which (and there arguably were a few) eventually (and perhaps inevitably?) evolved their own equivalents of blogging.
Of course, Gibson blogged that, so it’s not clear that he has sworn off this informal avenue of expression. Even if I swore off fandom, I don’t think I could give up the blog crack.