The Old Black Jewish Blogger Experience

I mentioned this before, but Julius Lester, 68, black jew, distinguished award winning author of 35 books, has a blog. I'm amazed. And as an Older Black Jewish Blogger, does that not totally create a hole in the ozone?

And its amazing how well he fits the profile. Take this from the FAQ on his website:

Q. Do you make a lot of money?

A. The majority of writers do not make a lot of money from writing. If you want to make a lot of money, you shouldn't be a writer.

Q. Do you enjoy writing?

A. Yes, but writing is very, very hard work. When I am working on a book I write about three hours a day and if I write three pages in that three hours, that is a good day's work. Writing is hard because you must rewrite, rewrite, rewrite. There are pages in some of my books that were rewritten more than 20 times. You must rewrite until the words say exactly what you want them to say. That is not as easy as it may sound.

Q. Do you use a computer when you write?

A. Yes! I love computers!!

See? Now where you see "writing" substitute "blogging", and take out all that stuff about hard work and rewriting... and voila! A Power Blogger is born.

But you know how old-schoolers refuse to use our new lingo — and in the case of "blog," who can argue — so he calls it a "commonplace book":

Commonplace books began in 15th century England. They were used as scrapbooks and contained anything a person wanted/needed to remember -- recipes, medical remedies, sayings, etc. No two commonplace books are the same because each reflects the person keeping it.

Of course anyone who in '68 titled a book Look Out, Whitey! Black Power's Gon' Get Your Mama!, or has written a novel about slavery for teens entirely in dialogue, should be able to call their electronic scrapbook whatever they like.

A Commonplace Book [Julius Lester Blog]