New York Times columnist and author David Greenberg describes his experience as a guestblogger on his friend's blog in a funny article. Greenberg (a liberal historian) subbed in for Dan Drezner, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, who runs the popular libertarian-conservative blog, DanielDrezner.com, and found out that blogging isn't as easy as it looks.
How hard could blogging be? You roll out of bed, turn on your computer, scan the headlines, think up some clever analysis while brushing your teeth, type it onto your site and you're off.
But as I discovered, blogging is no longer for amateurs or the faint of heart. Blogging -- if it's done well -- has evolved into an all-consuming art.
I wasn't the only newcomer to blogging last week. On the ballyhooed Huffington Post, Gary Hart, Walter Cronkite and David Mamet dipped their toes in the blogosphere as well.
I don't know how they'll fare, but I doubt that celebrity will attract readers for long. To succeed in blogging you need to understand it's a craft, with its own tricks of the trade. You need a thick skin. And you must put your life on hold to feed an electronic black hole.
What else did I learn by sitting in for Dan Drezner? That I'm not cut out for blogging.
