Getting the blog read

I've begun to take one of the courses offered by MediaBistro--this one on how to get your blog read. Pretty cool, if I say so myself.

Apparently there is a technique to writing for the web and it appears to involve writing down. Down where? No place you can touch. (We're not into geology or altitude, here.) But we do operate within the framework of levels. In this case, it's levels of discourse and literacy.

If you've ever read the writings of our founding fathers, or more recently of George Eliot, you will see that daily commentary on the web is way different. Way.

Moreover, if you don't write into that difference, no one will be able to find your blog. I love the comment our teacher made: "Pure nirvana is when a writer can successfully combine creativity with web writing." Because that's the thing: we're not talking about beautiful or shapely sentences. We're talking about "search engine optimization." SEO. A three letter non-word.

We are, you see, wanderers on a new planet where writers no longer write for readers or editors. We now write for Google.