Leahpeah interviewed the Byrneunit and right off the bat, Brian Byrne said something very eloquently with which I immediately agreed, and mentally screamed YES!

The question was "Why do you blog?"

His answer was as follows:

A few reasons. For one, I’ve always felt I needed the practice writing, and I don’t know about you, but I can’t keep a journal for shit. I’ve tried time and again, and I always run into the same fundamental problem: Who the fuck am I writing this for? I’m sure as fuck not gonna go back and read it, and I’m sure as sure as fuck not gonna let anybody else read it, so why the fuck am I not watching “The Core” on Showtime Extreme West Coast right now? For real, Aaron Eckhart and Hilary Swank can’t keep the planet from disintegrating if I’m not watching. It’s true. I asked them, and they told me.

For another, beyond needing practice writing, I think blogging helps keep me from going off at the mouth (keyboard) too much, as I have a tendency to write thousands upon thousands upon thousands of words when all I’m trying to say is, for example, that I tend to write very long sentences. Seven words are important, but just to be on the safe side I’ll pad them with an extra few hundred. Just to keep them from breaking during shipping.

For yet another, I am an extremely lazy writer, and I did find that having a blog, with its implied throngs of five (dare I dream, ten?) readers out there in Internetsville, was a solid enough prompt toward actually finishing things — small things, in manageable doses, and with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Entries like that strike me as legitimately good writing practice, assuming you can actually pull one off and not just spend all your time posting photographs of your television. (Cough.)

AAAAand finally, blogging has helped teach me to edit myself on the fly, and to ask myself one all-important question: Is what I’m writing the least bit entertaining? Because if not, it’s basically a journal entry, and look, I’m okay with baring my soul and all, but I apply the same (previously) unspoken understanding to the blog that I do with most of my friends: I am perfectly happy to hear what’s troubling you on a deeply felt emotional level. Just not that often. Because — and this is very important — I’m friends with you because you’re fun to drink with and you’re smart and not irritating and you make me laugh. I’m also pretty sure that’s why most of my friends are friends with me. I’m thinking an absolute maximum of maybe one bout of soul-baring every month or two is about as much as I feel comfortable foisting on my real-life friends, and thus the same goes for the Internets.

I agree wholeheartedly with all of it, but the final paragraph hits a sweet spot. Bloggers need to realize that they are publishing what they write. This means that the moment they hit "Publish" or "Save" or whatever, their words are no longer their own. Their words belong to those who read them. I've always hated writers who say, "I only write for myself." Please. If it really was only for you, then you'd write a fricken diary. When your words become available to me, you're writing for me, jackass. And if you're wasting my time, I'm gonna resent it.

This is why this blog is called The Product; to always remind me to keep the bullshit to a minimum. This blog is indeed constructed for me to crank out a couple hundred words here and there because I love recreational writing, but it also has a readership, no matter how small. And if it doesn't appeal to them, then why don't I just keep my rants about the latest processed food product to myself?

Yes, I'm a narcissist. I've never denied that.

Anyway, read the whole interview because the Byrnes are beautiful and charming.