Blog to Book

While creating this blog for my Multi-Modal class is my first experience of actually writing on a blog, I was introduced to the "blog-sphere" a while ago. My high school English teacher (my mentor, my inspiration for becoming a high school English teacher, and since I have graduated high school, my friend) introduced me to the blogging world. Her sister-in-law, Leslie, was diagnosed with cancer, and so (to my understanding) Leslie and Tyson (her husband) decided to update family and friends via Myspace blogging. That Myspace blog was then "mirrored" to a blogger site entitled "Leslie's Journey." With an intimate look into Leslie and Tyson's marriage, their love for God, their love for their son, and the battle of disease, I found myself inspired, moved, and devoted in prayer for this family. While reading it, I was constantly taken back by the beauty of the emotion put into Leslie's blog. The quality of writing was amazing. I found myself emailing and calling my English teacher asking the question: "So seriously, is there a book deal, yet?"
While Leslie's life on earth has ended, her testimony and legacy lives on through her blog. Her husband, Tyson, continues to write on his own blog entitled "Another Chapter," where he again (or maybe more properly said, still) shares his emotions openly with his witty and heart-wrenching writing.
Much to my, and the hundred-thousand plus (and no I am not exaggerating) of other dedicated readers delight, Leslie's Journey the blog has started its own journey towards becoming Leslie's Journey the book. As a future educator, this stands as yet another example of the blending of technology and literature, and the significance that technology will hold in our and our students' personal and professional lives. And what an amazingly motivational tool to get students writing: a guy sharing his life on a blog is on his way to becoming a published author.