the importance of reading Ernest; or should blogging be banned?

of course blogging shouldn't be banned. but there is an argument out there that blogging is creating lazy writers. take me, for example. i am supposed to be able to put out a press release or write a newspaper article without much effort. but after blogging for some months without doing those other things, i find that i am loathe to use correct grammar and seldom capitalize letters.

there is another argument that blogging is creating an army of people who think they are writers. a legion of bad writers who think they are good writers and who have equally bad writers as critics. critics who aren't even qualified to criticize what they, themselves, can't do.

i have always fancied myself competent with the pen when forced to turn a phrase, but competency and being a writer are two different things. that is why i think it is important to read good writing. read as much good writing as possible. then, as Ernest Hemingway writes, it becomes easy to spot a fake.

-- This too to remember. If a man writes clearly enough any one can see if he fakes. If he mystifies to avoid a straight statement, which is very different from breaking so-called rules of syntax or grammar to make an effect which can be obtained in no other way, the writer takes a longer time to be known as a fake and other writers who are afflicted by the same necessity will praise him in their own defense....incompentence in writing seeks to mystify where this is no mystery but is really only the necessity to fake to cover lack of knowledge or the inability to state clearly. -- Death in the Afternoon

now, i'm not talking about you people who don't think you are writers but are simply using the blog as a forum to keep in touch or post cute pictures of your kiddos. or those of you who obviously have no writing ambitions as every time i read your blog i suddenly wake up with a keyboard impression on my forehead, having nearly died from boredom. who am i talking about then? i am talking about you, and you know who you are, who, when you sit down at the keyboard, visualize your blog as the next Oprah's book club selection. you over explain. you use disgusting, sentimental language similar to that woman who wrote Twilight. you are all trying too hard, and not taking enough time to see what good writing really is.

to conclude, i am probably talking about me.