It seems like this blogging thing will never get past novelty level for most people. I see so many people set up blogs just to have one, it seems, and it's tough to keep any momentum going in this medium when you don't know why you're doing it.

And then you stumble across a guy like Scot McKnight, who blogs prolifically. The guy posts anywhere from 2-4 things a day, writes books and is a professor too. It boggles the mind. One of the questions he often gets asked is, "how do you do it?" His post, Writing — On the Side answers this question and has some gems for me as I evaluate whether or not I can "make time" for this blogging thing in the midst of busy school life.

He insists that writing can't be done on the side. He says:

...writing is a lifestyle, a way of life, a way of being, a modus operandi, a way of breathing and eating and drinking. Better yet, writing is a way of learning, a way of coming to know what someone wants to know, a way of discovering.

Writing is not something to do when everything else is cleared off the desk; no, it is something that makes order of the desk. I don’t get up wondering what I will write about, but I write about what I’m wondering. (That’s almost Chestertonian.) In other words, as Augustine spoke of “faith seeking understanding,” so writing is a pen seeking understanding.

I love what he had to say there. For me, writing is something that I love, and I think that I especially need an outlet like blogging while I'm in school precisely because I have to do so much writing here that I most definitely do not love. It could just as easily be a journal as a blog, but a blog is something that allows some interaction, which is kind of cool. Oh, and it lets my inner geek have something to fiddle with too. To close, some final words from Scot:

...writing isn’t done on the side. It’s in the soul, it’s a way of being, and it’s not for everyone. It’s a scribbler’s itch to get it down.