BLOGGING

There are no set rules for blogging. I often compare it to poetry. A critic will argue to the writer that the poet isn't writing poetry but some form of prose. The writer responds that it is poetry because he says it's poetry. He may argue that a paragraph or several paragraphs written in prose is poetry. If a poet says he's writing a couplet or a quatrain or a sonnet, there is a set form although there can be variances.

Take a haiku. The classic haiku is comprised of three lines, the lines following a five, seven, five syllabic pattern. But there are many practitioners of this form who don't follow this outline. They will contend that they are writing haikus even if they don't conform to this traditional presentation.

Blogging is similar. Blogging can be anything the creative mind chooses to pursue. There are bloggers who are content with their own articles. They're like musicians who refuse to play covers. There are bloggers who spotlight photos. There are bloggers who pull from various sources and never contribute an article themselves. Blogs can be absolutely anything. 

The most important goal is to find an audience and entertain them. It is also important to be prolific because readers will discard a blog that isn't posting regularly. No different than a man who will enter a woman's house as long as she keeps opening the door, the day she bars his entrance is the day that he starts knocking at another door. Somebody inevitably answers if you knock at enough doors out of desperation.

Beginning with the Herald in 1977, working for various publications throughout the years, inaugurating El Rocinante in 1990 as that infamous yellow sheet took the town my storm, I started blogging in 2000. "Judge" Ben Neece sold me some kind of contraption that he said was a computer and I decided instinctively this was the future of journalism. It took time to find a readership. 

When I published El Rocinante, I would print 10,000 copies and spread them throughout the city. They went like fresh flour tortillas they were gobbled up so quickly, but the labor from writing stories, selling ads, laying out the printed edition and distributing it was a demanding undertaking. In those inaugural internet days, I was ecstatic when I surpassed a hundred readers. In the beginning I was strictly writing my own stories.

Through the years I have evolved into my present format. I, of course, write. My topics can vary from straight journalism to poetry, from a personal piece to a short story. I have no qualms republishing other bloggers' posts, when they let me, to reprinting a Herald item that I believe the public should read since nobody reads the dying daily and a Steve Clark feature is generally worth reading. I have no second thoughts about drawing from any number of sources. I recently posted a piece on the Beat writer William S. Burroughs from Texas Monthly that was penned in 2001.

I'm also sympathetic to wild art. Besides including a photo or a painting with all my stories, I like to post a photo or a painting by itself with a headline over the top. This is wild art. People many times don't like to see their photo displayed publicly. If I conceive of the perfect headline to accompany the photo or painting, it can have as much impact as an article of a thousand words.

I generally strive to put an eight-piece package, or at least a six-piece package together. If eight is the goal, it will be four written pieces--my own,  a poem, a short story, a Herald article, another blogger's article, a New York Times feature and on and on--with art and four stand-alone photos or paintings with headlines across the top. I don't always achieve this production, but it's a standard I try to attain.

I'm in the middle of my 20th book. I've published novels, short stories and collections of poetry. As I enter my 74th year, I think it's about time to tell the whole truth in an autobiographical work. It makes the writing easier although the repercussions may be greater since successful confessional writing cuts to the bone and takes no prisoners, yourself as public enemy number one.

Regardless, I will continue along my present path. With the Herald only hitting the streets on Wednesdays and Saturdays, the newspaper may lose all relevance. The majority of the community's citizens insist that it has already lost all relevance. Combining The Valley Morning Star and The Monitor on its internet news outlet called myRGV, the Herald contribution to this endeavor are paltry.

The bloggers possess what is sorely lacking in the mainstream press: We are informative and entertaining. And we have a true calling. El Rrun Rrun's Juan Montoya remains true to his investigative roots and breaks one story after another. The Brownsville Observer's Jim Barton's wit is second to none and he has an eclectic predilection. And let's not forget the podcasters: Erasmo "The Cheez" Castro and Frankie Olivo among a smattering of others.

And we? At best, we're the frosting on the cake. At worst, we're just the last slice that nobody wants.